Intelligent Design and why it's lame-o

In May, I went on a road trip with my family. It was fun, and yet somehow I ended up standing in Yosemite National Park, drying dishes after breakfast, arguing with my parents over whether or not Intelligent Design should be taught in universities. My dad strongly believes in ID, and feels it should be given equal time alongside evolution. My mom doesn't really care (she believes evolution isn't necessarily driven by God, but was created by God to function the way it does), but feels it should at least be presented as an alternative theory--if not in the science curriculum, perhaps as philosophy.

These arguments stymied me--at the time. They appear perfectly rational, right? Consideration, that's all we want! Present the ideas and let the college students decide for themselves; we're not talking about intellectually malleable elementary school children here. Perfectly reasonable. Right?

As I say, at the time, I was stumped. I had a visceral reaction to the idea, but couldn't frame it in a way that my parents would accept or even entertain. Indeed, I couldn't even frame it to myself, apart from that ID is wrong.

At the time, all I could think of for the "ID is just plain wrong" position was a lack of evidence for it. But in order to successfully state my position to my parents, I needed positive evidence for its factual incorrectness, not just a lack of evidence to support factual correctness. And I had none.

See, I'm not in the habit of considering Intelligent Design as a viable option; I discarded it long ago and promptly banished it from my head, making room for more worthwhile thoughts.

After some searching in the dusty, secret corners of my brain, I found it--evolution isn't "intelligent" in the slightest. If there really is some entity with their finger in the world, whether they're actively involved or just "created the process", then that entity by no means fits into the definition of any god worth devoting one's entire life to.

No, this god is pretty fucking stupid. This god relies on trial and error to get its "creations" to the point where they function on any level whatsoever. We are subject to horrific, naturally-occurring deformities--kids born without faces, to name just one.

You can say that god doesn't prevent suffering--for whatever reason--but why create it that blatantly? Why design a system that inherently results in suffering for those creatures you pretend to love the most? For that matter, why are animals, who supposedly have no awareness of their creator*, subject to the same set of birth defects and suffering? It's pointless for them; they can't grow spiritually, offer suffering to god in atonement for sins, or any of the other reasons my mom gave me for human suffering. Pointless suffering, knowingly inflicted by someone who should know better, is just cruelty.

"It is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer or die needlessly."**

Contrary to human dignity, to be sure--but not, apparently, to godly dignity.

And so, I am supposed to believe that this system was designed by an all-powerful entity who could have, if he'd wanted to, designed it in such a way that his creations would not have to suffer as a result of his design--but he did not?

If your god exists, and is as kind as you say he is, Intelligent Design would be an example of idiocy and cruelty--not intelligence.

*Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 356

**Catechism of the Catholic Church, Paragraph 2418

I'm not going to be that dumbass blogger who apologizes for not posting enough.

Except I guess I am. I'm not apologizing, though; I'm mostly just posting to remind myself that I still have things to say and am therefore not even remotely done with this thing.

I write what is in my head, and lately the only things in my head are personal--well, what I would consider personal. I do not agree with those who refuse to discuss religion and politics, citing "it's personal". Well, fuck. If your opinion on the meaning of life and the basic structure of the society in which you live isn't the most public thing ever, fuck me sideways and shave my fucking cat.

No, when I say personal, I mean interpersonal relationships. I mean my dealings with and feelings toward those I interact with in the real world. I mean that my interpersonal relationships are draining my energy and I have nothing left to devote to my intellect.

Dear 7 readers, never fear; I will be back soon.

In Which I Mercilessly Dismantle Sam Schulman’s “Knowledge” Of Kinship, Laughing All The While

This is a response to Sam Schulman's "The Worst Thing About Gay Marriage". I won't post a link, but fear not; google will show you the way. 

In order for an argument to hold water, you must first accept the basic premises. In this case, firstly, that we have a rigid kinship structure; and secondly, that this rigid kinship structure must be preserved. I am completely ignoring the issue of whether or not marriage does indeed fulfill the functions laid out by Mr. Schulman, because that portion of the argument is completely irrelevant. His assumptions are faulty; there is no need to consider arguments supporting a faulty assumption.

Besides, I’m pretty sure a lot of people have already torn his article apart on those grounds.

But back to my issues. To begin with, the idea of a rigid kinship structure is laughable. Clearly, this person has no idea what kinship actually means.

Kinship, like all cultural traits, is fluid. This fluid nature is harder to see when you only examine a short period of time in the history of a culture, but it is always there. Do you really suppose that the Yanomamo came into existence using ebene? This notion ignores the process of cultural evolution; it's possible that we can define the moment they became Yanomamo as the period when they began practicing the use of ebene, but it's absurd to propose that they've "always been that way". Nobody has "always" been anything.

Unless you’re a Creationist, of course. If that is the case, you might as well stop reading right now, because 1) you’re going to get annoyed with me, and 2) you are obviously unequipped to grapple with the basic rules of logic and reading this is a waste of your time.

Culture, like "nature", is continually in flux. There is no end goal; no set purpose; no state to which we are moving. Understanding of this concept has fallen into shadow with the advent of our own particular culture, as we have developed the cultural trait of seeking the "best" way to do things; but in reality, there is no such thing as “best”. Just the fact that I can point out our desire to do things "right" proves my point; have humans "always" tried to things “right”? Of course not. The Yanomamo do not run up to the U.S. and attempt to get us to use ebene. Neither do they attempt to coerce neighboring villages into joining theirs; on the contrary, historically, Yanomamo societies are more likely to split than merge. (Chagnon 82)

Because, for example, our technology trends toward faster, smaller, and more efficient, we feel that our society is also trending upwards. I will not offer a commentary on whether we are trending upwards or downwards, because to me, the issue is moot. We’re not trending up or down—but we are trending in a direction. And that direction is change—just change. Undeniably, the United States has changed radically since its inception; but there is no reason to suppose that today we are inherently better than we were on May 27, 1809. To be sure, our society had ills at that time that we have since attempted to erase, but again, there is no reason to suppose that we are “better”. We are merely different.

Our laws make more sense now; that’s all. Laws shape a society as often as they reflect it; quite frequently, a law is enacted that does not reflect the society as it is, but how [enough] people wish it to be. And it takes time for the attitudes to catch up with the laws; we don’t consider black people to be property anymore, but that doesn’t mean every individual in the U.S. is free of racism. The longer we live in a society that prohibits slavery, the more we come to collectively agree on the immorality of racial discrimination. It’s a simple, observable fact.

And so, who are you to choose an arbitrary point in our cultural history and claim it as the best? On May 27, 1809, plenty of people thought we were already the best we could possibly be. Think about that.

The plain and simple fact is that if you consider a kinship system to be so glorious that it can and should resist evolutionary (in a societal sense) pressures, you have disregarded the fluid nature of culture and placed that particular system as the end result of cultural change. Which just means that all cultures are striving to be like yours.

Do you recall the “Great Chain of Being”? The Great Chain of Being placed squirrels above insects; dogs above squirrels; dark-skinned humans above dogs; light-skinned humans above dark-skinned humans; angels above light-skinned humans; God above angels. The Chain placed creatures in this manner as a reflection of how God had ordered his creation; the position of dark-skinned humans below light-skinned ones allowed the white Europeans to consider their African peers as subhuman.

You may laugh at the ignorant people who made the Great Chain of Being, and well you should—but if you laugh unfettered, unmindful of your hypocrisy, perhaps you should go back to the beginning and read every word of this over again.



Works Cited:

Chagnon, Napoleon A. Yanomamo. 5th edition; 1997.

My degree (in anthropology).

Everyone's a doctor--er, anthropologist

I feel called to congratulate 52% of the state of California on their admirable accomplishment; they have succeeded, in just one round of Mormon-funded voting, where anthropologists have failed time and again. They have 1) defined Marriage [the capital M is intentional]; and 2) decided that a one-woman, one-man union is essential to a culture’s survival. Well done, you! I expect the anthropologists who have dedicated their lives to the study of marriage and have yet to agree on a universal [yet utile] definition shall ring you presently to bask in your infinite wisdom.

I do not claim to be an expert on culture; I doubt you could find anyone who does. I freely admit that I hold only a bachelor’s degree in anthropology, but lacking any evidence that the majority of Americans have any knowledge of cultures beyond our own (and this is written in the simple fact that most Americans still use the term “primitive” to describe cultures that do not engage in totalitarian agriculture or live in vast cities), I think we can assume I’m more of an expert than they are.

George Peter Murdock defined marriage as such: Marriage “exists only when the economic and the sexual [functions] are united into one relationship.” But what about the Nayar? In the 19th century, the Nayar lived in India; a woman had to have at least two husband, a ritual husband and one or more visiting husbands, none of which contributed any material support to the woman and her children. And so Kathleen E. Gough, an anthropologist studying the Nayar, gave this definition: “a relationship established between a woman and one or more other persons, which provides that a child born to the woman under circumstances not prohibited by the rules of the relationship is accorded full birth-status rights common to normal members of his [or her] society or social stratum.” This allows the definition to include other rare and rather complicated kinds of marriages, such as biologically female-female marriages that are socially defined as male-female and do not include a sexual component—which, as of the 1970s, made up 3% of all marriages in the Nandi of Kenya. And yet, Gough’s definition excludes the male-male marriages of the Cheyenne Indians in the 1800s, and ghost marriages of many cultures including Taiwan. (Pasternak 82-84)

Where do your “traditions” fall?

Oh, I see; you’re just talking about our culture. After all, we’re special; we answer to a higher power; we’re “civilized”. Perhaps you should read my next post.

Note: Statistically, I believe the most common marriage arrangement is indeed male-female. But most cultures have situations in which a different arrangement occurs—and in no instance are those different arrangements considered “deviant” or “outside the norm”. They are simply different, and still within the boundaries of their culture—or else they would not exist, and not by virtue of illegality. When did we start believing “minority” = “deviant”?

If you would like to know more about any of these topics, please let me know. I was intentionally brief to avoid rambling.

Works Cited:
Pasternak, Burton, Carol R. Ember, and Melvin Ember. Sex, Gender, and Kinship: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. 1997.

Matilda Joslyn Gage on marriage

The power possessed by the church during the middle ages was largely due to the control it had secured over domestic relations, and that no more severe blow has ever been inflicted upon it than the institution of civil marriage.... The Protestant pulpit is only less dangerous than the Catholic to the liberties of the people in that its organized strength is less. The old medieval control of the family under and through marriage is now as fully the aim of the Protestant church as of the Catholic.... The courts of this country have decided that marriage is a civil contract. As such a clergyman is no more fitted to take part in it than he would be to take acknowledgment of a deed, or take part in the legalization of any other contract. In fact a marriage performed by a clergyman of any denomination should be regarded as invalid in the light of civil law.

-- Matilda Joslyn Gage, "The Dangers of the Hour," refuting the Pope's and clergy's opposition to America's institution of civil marriage, quoted from Annie Laurie Gaylor, Women Without Superstition, p. 218-9. positiveatheism.org

If you aren't in awe, you aren't paying attention

Atheists garner a lot of criticism for “abandoning the wonder” in life. The assumption is that without supernatural belief, humans lack something to inspire awe, to marvel over; there is no imagination or room for creativity in a life without religion.

This, as you may have guessed, is something I believe to be composed entirely of bullshit. I believe in some things for which I have very few reasons; these bring me no end of mystery to ponder, no end of enjoyment. Some of my crazy theories are backed by [albeit slight] evidence; some are merely fancy. But none of them are harmful—and that’s what makes them ok.

Sometimes I believe the spirits of my dead relatives are awash across the universe in the form of stardust. Sometimes I believe fairies live in flowers, water sprites in creeks, and dryads in trees. Sometimes I believe in an unseen collective of consciousness made up of the energy of all living things, communicating constantly regardless of time and distance.

I have reasons for believing these things; they’re not necessarily excellent reasons, but they exist. I believe in the first because I “feel” them occasionally around me; plus it’s a pleasant thought, thinking of your cousin who died from a gunshot wound to the head flitting through galaxies, pure energy swarming through stars and space debris. It’s entirely possible that his matter will become star material someday, but it’s unlikely he has any awareness of it. Still, it’s a harmless belief. Silly—but harmless.

Religious beliefs are anything but harmless. I’m ok with pretending that fairies live in flowers because it doesn’t affect my behavior—except in a good way, if it spurs me to protect the Earth. I’m not trying to throw children in jail for picking flowers because it infringes on the rights of fairies, or going around college campuses passing out free copies of The Fairy Manifesto, or telling my high school significant other that he or she is going to burn in hell for not worshipping the Fairy Queen.

My third irrational belief is not as irrational as it may seem at first. Quantum physicists have demonstrated that particles can communicate instantaneously across vast distances; I’ve merely extrapolated from those experiments. Since we are made up of particles, and particles communicate regardless of space and time, something like my theory is possible. According to quantum physics, these particles communicate instantaneously because they are actually the same particle. (think about that for a minute. i dare you to tell me your mind isn’t blown.) 

Think about how that idea could affect the entire human population, and then tell me how your belief has equal ramifications.

Believing in God is not harmless, even if you throw out all the wars and disagreements and policies and all of that. See, if you subscribe to Intelligent Design, if you just content yourself with “Oh, God did it,” there is no room for further inquiry. Why bother? God did it. God started it all. Sure, there might be a single being who started the universe rolling (emphasis on MIGHT), but there’s no evidence for it, so what good is that opinion?

“No good at all” is the answer you’re looking for. A hole in our knowledge is inspiration for intellectual growth; plugging that hole with an idea just because that idea has been handed down to you (the number of generations is irrelevant) stymies any hope you may have of finding what’s actually in the hole. And the more people who believe they’ve already filled the hole, the less likely we are to find what’s really in there.

I acknowledge my flights of fancy as such—but they also have the added benefit of not prematurely plugging holes. My flights of fancy feed my imagination as well as my essence; I enjoy them, and they sustain me. However, they're ideas that admit to being so; they allow for further exploration, and not the false exploration of evolution confined to the cage of religion.

My flights of fancy could be true. They could be utter hogwash. Either way, I'm good.

Now try these on for size:

• If you condense the history of the universe to a single year, humans would appear on December 31st at 10:30 pm. 99.98% of the history of the universe happened before humans even existed.
• We are star material that knows it exists.
• Through the wonder of DNA, you are literally half your mom and half your dad.
• The faster you go, the slower time moves.
• All life on Earth is directly related by descent. You are a cousin not just of apes, but of the sequoia and the amoeba, of mosses and butterflies and blue whales.

Now that, my friends, is wonder.

~ From "Teaching Kids to Yawn at Counterfeit Wonder" by Dale McGowan; excerpt from Parenting Beyond Belief

Quote of the moment from positiveatheism.org

"You are nipping in the bud fancies which I let blossom. The shore is safer, but I love to buffet the sea -- I can count the bitter wrecks here in these pleasant waters, and hear the murmuring winds, but oh, I love the danger!"

-- Emily Dickinson, embarking on a quest for truth unfettered by doctrinal constraints and herd prescriptions (very reminiscent of Melville), in a letter to Abiah, quoted from Gary Sloan, "Emily Dickinson: Pagan Sphinx," Positive Atheism (June, 2001)