WHERE WE CAME FROM AND WHERE WE'RE GOING

I've been meaning to write something about Intelligent Design for some time. I had been against it all along, but it wasn't until I saw an episode of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! on YouTube that showed me exactly what was wrong about it. Maybe I shouldn't put a lot of stock in what a ponytailed atheist magician and his mute partner have to say (or make gestures about, in Teller's case) regarding an issue almost entirely based on religion. Oh well. I guess this has something to do with my ability to seek the truth of life almost entirely from jaded Jewish comedians, such as Al Franken, David Cross, and the bespectacled rageaholic Lewis Black. It just seems to make a lot of sense.

Anyway, there are many reasons I oppose Intelligent Design, which for purposes of brevity, I will br referring to as I-D. First of all, the episode of Bullshit stated that in Cobb County, Georgia, all science textbooks now carry a message in the inside cover, warning that the book contains information about evolution, that evolution is only a theory, and (one could infer) that it should not taken seriously. Well, it is just a theory. The difference lies almost entirely in semantics. When average people use the word "theory" they're actually talking about something a scientist would call a hypothesis. It's a guess. When scientists talk about theories, they're referring to something that has stood up in the face of several attempts to find fault with it and come out intact.

Fundamentalist Christians want to teach I-D in Science class. This can't possibly work. What kind of laboratory experiments can we do about this? There aren't any, because
I-D is not science. It doesn't rely on the scientific method. Just as a reminder, the scientific method goes like this: You observe something, and ask "Why does that happen the way it does?" You then make a guess as to why, and then find some way to test your guess. If it turns out your guess was wrong, you make a new guess and repeat from there. Or maybe, you might even consider asking a new question.

1. Observation: We exist.
2. Question: Where did we come from?
3. Guess: We evolved from apes.
4. Test: Dig for bones.
5. Result: We found fragments of skeletons that seem to be partway between apes and humans. Maybe we did evolve.

Okay, that's a bit oversimplified. But it shows that the connection has been made.

Now try following the intelligent design line of reasoning.
1. Observation: We exist.
2. Question: Where did we come from?
3. Guess: God created the heavens and the earth and all the living things on it.
4. Test: ...um...

Now at this point the argument breaks down, because there is no possible way to test this. Christian fundamentalists believe there need be no testing, because the whole concept should be accepted on something that has absolutely no place in science--FAITH. (This is what I consider to be the true f-word, because I always start feeling more negative about a person whenever they direct it at me.) It has no place in science because faith by definition is belief in something without proof. And when you throw out the requirement of proof, all other rules break down.

Here's one metaphor I thought up: It's as if you're cooking a soup with a delicate flavor, and some asshole friend of yours thinks the soup would taste better if you added chocolate syrup. Not because he thinks it would improve the soup, but because he likes chocolate syrup. The fundamentalists don't really care about science. They're trying to throw in something that doesn't work because they'd like it to be that way. They want to turn Science class into another place to pick up new converts.

Some day I'm going to be an old man, and if my tax dollars are going to teaching kids that God created everything, I'm going to believe that my tax dollars are better spent paying for my insulin and heart prescription (after all the soda I drink and fast food I eat turns me into a diabetic with heart disease) rather than on our schools. I don't want to take money away from public schools, because they gave me an education that I truly value and plan to use well. I owe it to them.

But this is why I truly hate I-D. I believe that where you come from influences where you're going. It doesn't completely control it, but it plays a major part. Let me give you an example. When I started applying to colleges in January of 2004, These were my 6 choices:

University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, Needham, MA

Why each of these? Each had a great computer science program. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do yet, but I knew computers were involved. Three were in Massachusetts, because I wanted to be close enough to home to occasionally visit, but far enough that I'd have to live on campus. Masachusetts and New York were both very liberal states, and since I had been raised in a liberal state, I wanted to remain in a liberal place. (Kinda like how a lot of Deep Southerners rarely leave the South.) Michigan was an option only because my grandparents on my father's side lived there, and I could stay with them. All of these decisions based on "Where you've been influences where you will go."

What does this have to do with I-D and Evolution? Simple. If evolution is correct that Mankind came from something lesser, it means that in the future we will continue to evolve new features. We can't really say how the homo sapiens will improve, but one of my guesses is that we'll develop psychic powers. Or maybe if humans continue to move into space, we'll evolve in such a way that we can withstand the vacuum of space without suits. Humans are a step above apes. Where you've been influences where you're going. Somehow, few seem to have noticed the possibility that this step is not the last.

If I-D is right, then that means we are as good as we will ever get. God created us, this is how we are, and this is how we will be for-fucking-ever. What would happen if the Rapture occurs, and there are those who don't get in? It's the end of hope. We who are left on Earth missed the last lifeboat off a sinking ship, and sooner or later, we're going to be sucked under, and all because we refused to stop using our sense of reason and accept on blind faith the existence of God. The birth rate will slowly decline to zero, for what point is there to bearing a child destined for Hell anyway? And then we will all die, and maybe God will decide to create something else.

Even if we eliminate the possibility of the Christian prophesy of the apocalypse causing the end of everything, that means that ultimately humanity can't improve its condition. We will eventually discover everything that remains to be discovered in the universe, explain everything that can be perceived with our limited senses, and after processing it all, come up with no answer to the meaning of life, what then?

Maybe the Meaning of Life is something we're not evolved enough to understand as it is.