Those of you who have been reading some of the usual suspects might have come across the "Flying Spaghetti Monster." A young physics student has taken it upon himself to write to the Kansas School Board demanding his version of equality:

It is for this reason that I�m writing you today, to formally request that this alternative theory [of earthly creation by the Flying Spaghetti Monster] be taught in your schools, along with the other two theories. In fact, I will go so far as to say, if you do not agree to do this, we will be forced to proceed with legal action. I�m sure you see where we are coming from. If the Intelligent Design theory is not based on faith, but instead another scientific theory, as is claimed, then you must also allow our theory to be taught, as it is also based on science, not on faith.

Some find that hard to believe, so it may be helpful to tell you a little more about our beliefs. We have evidence that a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the universe. None of us, of course, were around to see it, but we have written accounts of it. We have several lengthy volumes explaining all details of His power. Also, you may be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million of us, and growing. We tend to be very secretive, as many people claim our beliefs are not substantiated by observable evidence.

That's not to carry water for intelligent design as an idea. I think it's a poor theory, and usually answer arguments in its favor with a brief nod towards Robert Frost and go on. (Frost is making the same point that Henderson could be making, in a classier way: that Intelligent Design might purport to explain an underlying intelligence behind creation, but even if you accept it, it tells you little about that intelligence.) But in general I see the fight as a political battle in the culture wars, one adopted by proponents of a greater amount of religion in public life because alternative legislative avenues have been foreclosed by an aggressive interpretation of the Establishment Clause. Oh, sure, it's a religious conflict, but one largely religious on both sides: it's no coincidence that the most vocal opponents of ID (or at least the most willing to be obnoxious about it) are a particularly loud stripe of atheists.[1] I pretty much hold with Raffi Melkonian on evolution: even if one accepts it scientifically, there's a reasonable case for just leaving it out of the curriculum to avoid the conflict. [2]

In any event, some good comes from reading and learning about such things. For instance, when I came across the Flying Spaghetti Monster Flash Game at Newgrounds.com, at least I knew what it was about (though I'd forgotten the relevance of pirates). Actually, it's not half-bad for a small flash game. For those of my readers who do think this kind of thing is funny, well, you'll be happy I passed it on.

[1]: I have found very few committed agnostics who are that concerned about evolution or intelligent design being taught in the classroom. Not to say that such agnostics don't exist, but it certainly doesn't appear as a big blip on the radar when I'm chatting with others of my own stripe. Scientifically-minded atheists can easily find themselves taking positions that elevate science to the level of a religion: not that something scientifically provable does exist, but that anything not subject to observable and empirical examination doesn't. (Even that statement is a distortion, but I'll assume Heidi will forgive me, as she explains it better)

Indeed, my own high school experience in the deep South brings me to a few more moderate thoughts. High schools don't teach "science" that well at all, at least as far as scientific method is concerned. Perhaps AP science classes do, but for the most part I learned a set of facts about the physical world that either (a) we didn't question much, or (b) were pretty much instrumentalist. That's fairly practical. I'd like to think that someone building a bridge, and not merely its architect, knows something about vortexes and harmonics. (I'd really like to think that a marching band leader or the like knows to tell his crew to break march when crossing bridges.) But the idea that high schools students are going to be taught to question the universe because evolution is in the curriculum makes me wonder some folks aren't overestimating most science education. Asking most of my high school science teachers about the limits of the scientific method was about as fruitful as asking Jimmy Swaggart about the limits of faith.

On the other hand, my general thought for those in a religious majority is: given how well our schools work, do you want them teaching a complicated subject like religion, or even theology? What little religion that snuck into my high-school education got in through literature, and that was taught horribly. I spent hours convincing my British Literature teacher that Mephistopheles could not be Satan, despite her making that the right answer to a matching question, because Satan is referenced as Lucifer, and later in the play M and L have a chat. Heaven knows what I would have thought had more "information" like that gotten through.

But in the end I'm worried less by the risk that we'll become a "theocracy" if American students of other religions have to learn something of the Christian faith--and maybe share their own--than I am by the world that strict separationists are building and the ignorance it inflicted upon me. The only Song of Solomon I read in high school was Toni Morrison's execrable misery: forcing me to foresake two young roes for a random and inexplicable peacock should be a crime in itself. It's amazing that no one could ever teach me some of the beauty in Christianity until I'd had to learn about the beauty of Buddhism.

[2]: What really amuses me, however, is the argument that it's important to teach evolution because otherwise people will fail to learn skills at rational argument. This entertains me primarily because many of those who argue against ID aren't particularly good at such rationality. I can only imagine that the Economist (premium link) was having a laugh when it published an evolution proponent who challenged intelligent design by arguing that no intelligent creator would build an animal the male of which has facial hair with so little purpose that many such creatures would shave it off daily.

Is that an argument that humans are badly designed? Maybe, although I enjoy the option of being clean shaven or bearded, so maybe not. In any event, something may be the result of intelligent design without being well-designed. This person obviously needed a slightly different version of the paradigmatic ID argument: if you found an Edsel in the desert, you wouldn't assume that it had evolved there naturally or put in place by wild animals, but rather would assume an intelligent creator had built it. You would not be dissuaded from this assumption by the fact that the front grill is butt-ugly, although you might entertain theories about an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of CAD/CAM machines for longer than you might in the face of a better car. In any event, you don't have to look very far to find those busy telling us how important it is to teach evolution for the sake of the scientific method turning from formal logic to flippant fallacy and never noticing.