The Tampa Tribune reports the Polk County School Board was caught by surprise by the widespread response to their interest in Intelligent Design. They have decided not to pursue the teaching of Intelligent Design.
I suppose it’s a victory for science, but I was optimistic about Polk County being the first to introduce Pastafarian theories into the curriculum.
The article by Billy Townsend is titled “Polk Needled, Noodled in Evolution Flap“.
Public floggings hurt, even when administered by satirical sacred noodles.
Ask the Polk County School Board. The panel made news last month when five of its seven members declared a personal belief in the concept of intelligent design, the religiously based explanation of the development of life believed in by many Christians.
Four of those five sympathetic board members said they would like to see intelligent design taught in Polk schools as an alternative to Darwinian evolution, at a time when new state standards mentioning evolution by name for the first time are under consideration.
Just like that, it appeared the Darwin wars had found their newest battlefield.
Yet a few weeks later, the controversy is dying with a whimper. There’s no board support for a challenge to the proposed standards. Some of the five school board members blame the local newspaper for trying to start a fight.
“It’s not our agenda,” said Tim Harris, one of the board members. “My personal opinion and how I vote don’t always jibe.”
What happened? You can start with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
The satirical religious Web site asserts that an omnipotent, airborne clump of spaghetti intelligently designed all life with the deft touch of its “noodly appendage.” Adherents call themselves Pastafarians. They deluged Polk school board members with e-mail demanding equal time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism’s version of intelligent design.
“They’ve made us the laughingstock of the world,” said Margaret Lofton, a school board member who supports intelligent design.
It’s an excellent article. I’m even quoted a couple times. I admit it sounds like I’m against the inclusion of supernatural theories in science, which would include Pastafarian beliefs as well as Intelligent Design, but I assure you my statements are part of a larger strategy of some sort, in the best interest of Pastafarianism.
Here’s the article, enjoy!
Eeeek…now there’s two of them….!!!
You know, I was reading the comments on the article, and it’s just depressing. Argumentatum ad nauseam, ad nauseam. “Evolution is just a theory”, “There is no proof for Evolution”, “Here’s a creationist website, go there to see all the long-discredited protests against Evolution being rephrased in the faint hope that this time someone will be convinced”.
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The one that really took the biscuit is some nameless fool who disproved the Theory of Evolution by arguing that if it was proven, it would no longer be a theory. Losers the lot of them!
When are these dolts going to learn that “theory” as in “theory of evolution, or relativity, or quantum mechanics or …, does not mean “blind guess based on no thought whatever’, and has no relationship to the word “theory” used by the guy sitting on his porch drinking cheap beer and saying “I got a theory about that.”
@devout heathen: “The one that really took the biscuit is some nameless fool who disproved the Theory of Evolution by arguing that if it was proven, it would no longer be a theory. Losers the lot of them!”
Good, that makes it the evolution fact.
“They’ve made us the laughingstock of the world,”, No you do that all on your own, we just point it out to everyone else! It’s sad to think that Christians are so blind they can’t see the resemblance between themselves and Pastafarians…Open you mind, people!! It’s what Jesus really wants…
“They’ve made us the laughingstock of the world,”, no actually its a weird little guy that lives close to me hi bangs hes head against cruttons till the FSM comes… youtube it under lukazaz or ronda 1… its a 3 part video of a cell phone gathering…
@All
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This is a shame that an evolutionary cosmological revelation is taught as science and there is no other counter thought. The future generations are doomed to mediocrity.
Nice article. It must have been fun to live in that town while that was all happening. The best part, by far, is how they backed down knowing how it could all affect the economic prospects related to brining a campus and hopefully high-tech companies to the area.
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I also read a number of the comments. It’s so sad how many people still use the “just a theory” argument, among others.