Wednesday, August 17, 2005

 

Gravity vs. Intelligent Falling


Above: Rev. Gabriel Burdett (left) explains
Intelligent Falling
When you get right down to it, what I really wanted to do was to feel like Sibby for a minute, a right wing political blogger who cuts and pastes stuff from sources like Rush Limbaugh and therefore somehow proves whatever point he was trying to make. So here goes. From this week's The Onion:

"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.


By Sibby's logic, I've just proven that gravity doesn't exist. Actually I don't want to get down on my favorite hillbilly, we hold different political views and have completely different ways of expressing them. Mine, BOJ News Service, is, to my way of thinking, just a little more creative than cutting and pasting Limbaugh. Hey, different strokes for different folks.

I'm actually doing this post for a number of reasons besides having a little fun with Sibby. First, I occasionally make posts based on another favorite news source of mine, a publication TSA and I lovingly refer to as "The Paper" (Look! Hookers are selling Gift Certificates!). Another weekly read that gives me a good number of chuckles is The Onion. I love The Onion, it was the inspiration for BOJ News Service. Granted I haven't done much of the full blown story type of thing, though I tried some of that early on. That's hard stuff, though and what I really like doing is just making the silly photos. So now I've posted something based on The Onion. Goal one acheived.

Another aim of this post is a discussion of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design. I love a sales pitch, I watch infomercials because I like to see the logic an advertiser will use to try to sell me something. This morning I watched parts of infomercials for the Magic Bullet one seving food blender dealie and the Little Giant complete ladder system. After a few minutes of watching each, I'm not quite sure how I've lived my life to this point without either of these fine products.

On a releated subject I was flipping around the channels late one night last week and came upon a discussion of Evolution vs. Intelligent Design on one of the religious channels. Actually the production values were pretty high and most of the logical arguments were pretty reasonable. They presented both sides of the agrument pretty fairly though it was quite clear which side they came down on. That's fine considering the source.

There were a few logical falacies in their argument, one that concerend me quite a bit. They started showing results of some opinion polls, one in particular showed that somewhere around 40% of people polled were in favor of teaching Intelligent Design along with Evolution in schools. That number seemed a little high to me and I didn't catch the source, but if that's their number, that's their number. The statement that followed is what I had a problem with, I'm paraphrasing, but it was along the lines of, "So, see, most people are in favor of teaching Intelligent Design in our schools....." I'm not sure when 40% of people became most of the people, I guess it's a majority when you need it to be for your arguement.

The other interesting thing they said on the program is that Evolution is the only scientific theory that requires legal protection. Gravity, for instance, is also a scientific theory and doesn't require legal protection. I suppose that's why the ariticle in The Onion struck me as so funny. I like to think that the author of the article saw the same program I did. The point ofThe Onion's article is just how silly it is to have a differeng viewpoint to the theory of gravity, how silly it would be to attempt to refute it on religious grounds:

...there are many phenomena that cannot be explained by secular gravity alone, including such mysteries as how angels fly, how Jesus ascended into Heaven, and how Satan fell when cast out of Paradise.....


Gravity doesn't require legal protetion because there aren't people out there wanting to teach their religion in public schools through the guise of quasi-science. Most people know that.....

BOJ

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Comments:
Does ignorance have legal protection? Will it eventually dominate? I am running scared.
 
As a matter of fact, ignorance is protected by the law. Ever count how many warning labels there are on a step ladder? Feel free to be stupid!
 
That One Gal, how free can I be if I become incredibly stupid?
 
Heated discussion! Yes! The Global Domination is well on it's way.....
 
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