10/25/2005 09:29:00 PM|||Jonthon|||

This evening I attended the Chancellor's Global Issues Forum this evening, which was discussing the Tennessee Scopes Monkey Trial. Basically, this is the court case that decided evolution could be taught in schools, whereas creationism can not. Now that the religious right has changed the name to Intelligent Design and supported their beliefs with considerable (no) extra support, we're all obliged to have this discussion again.
Anyway, I asked a question that I thought was pretty clever:
"I have a legal/sociopolitical question for the panel. There are those who claim they have evidence that a Flying SPaghetti Monster created the universe. They have several lengthy volumes explaining all the details of His power. You might be surprised to hear that there are over 10 million followers, and they are growing. They claim that every time a scientist makes a measurement, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is there changing the results with his noodly appendage. Essentially, they have reverse-engineered the Intelligent Design argument, and are calling for equal consideration under the law. What are the legal and educational ramifications of this effort?"
But I guess it was too clever. After the laughter subsided, there were two short comments made before Chancellor Deaton moved to the next question. Damn...

|||113056430905324521|||Chancellor's Scopes Monkey Trial Lecture