{"id":620,"date":"2007-07-30T10:27:46","date_gmt":"2007-07-30T14:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacefulhippo.wordpress.com\/2007\/07\/30\/620\/"},"modified":"2007-07-30T10:27:46","modified_gmt":"2007-07-30T14:27:46","slug":"620","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/2007\/07\/30\/620\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, October 18, 2005<\/h3>\n

The only debate on Intelligent Design that is worthy of its subject <\/a><\/h4>\n

Moderator: We’re here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des—<\/p>\n

(Scientist pulls out baseball bat.)<\/p>\n

Moderator: Hey, what are you doing?<\/p>\n

(Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate’s kneecap.)<\/p>\n

Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP!<\/p>\n

Scientist: Perhaps it only appears<\/em> that I broke your
\nkneecap. Certainly, all the evidence points to the hypothesis I broke
\nyour kneecap. For example, your kneecap is broken; it appears to be a
\nfresh wound; and I am holding a baseball bat, which is spattered with
\nyour blood. However, a mere preponderance of evidence doesn’t mean
\nanything. Perhaps your kneecap was designed<\/em> that way.
\nCertainly, there are some features of the current situation that are
\ninexplicable according to the “naturalistic” explanation you have just
\nadvanced, such as the exact contours of the excruciating pain that you
\nare experiencing right now.<\/p>\n

Intelligent Design advocate: AAAAH! THE PAIN!<\/p>\n

Scientist: Frankly, I personally find it completely implausible that
\nthe random actions of a scientist such as myself could cause pain of
\nthis particular kind. I have no precise explanation for why I find this
\nhypothesis implausible — it just is. Your knee must have been
\ndesigned that way!<\/p>\n

Intelligent Design advocate: YOU BASTARD! YOU KNOW YOU DID IT!<\/p>\n

Scientist: I surely do not. How can we know<\/em> anything for
\ncertain? Frankly, I think we should expose people to all points of
\nview. Furthermore, you should really re-examine whether your hypothesis
\nis scientific at all: the breaking of your kneecap happened in the
\npast, so we can’t rewind and run it over again, like a laboratory
\nexperiment. Even if we could, it wouldn’t prove that I broke your
\nkneecap the previous<\/em> time. Plus, let’s not even get into the
\nfact that the entire universe might have just popped into existence
\nright before I said this sentence, with all the evidence of my alleged
\nkneecap-breaking already pre-formed.<\/p>\n

Intelligent Design advocate: That’s a load of bullshit sophistry!
\nGet me a doctor and a lawyer, not necessarily in that order, and we’ll
\nsee how that plays in court!<\/p>\n

Scientist (turning to audience): And so we see, ladies and
\ngentlemen, when push comes to shove, advocates of Intelligent Design do
\nnot actually believe any of the arguments that they profess to believe.
\nWhen it comes to matters that hit home, they prefer evidence, the
\nscientific method, testable hypotheses, and naturalistic explanations.
\nIn fact, they strongly privilege naturalistic explanations over
\nsupernatural hocus-pocus or metaphysical wankery. It is only within the
\nreality-distortion field of their ideological crusade that they give
\ncredence to the flimsy, ridiculous arguments which we so commonly see
\non display. I must confess, it kind of felt good, for once, to be the
\none spouting free-form bullshit; it’s so terribly easy and relaxing,
\ncompared to marshaling rigorous arguments backed up by empirical
\nevidence. But I fear that if I were to continue, then it would be
\nhabit-forming, and bad for my soul. Therefore, I bid you adieu.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

[this article, and several follow-ups, can be found in the original at http:\/\/www.pkblogs.com\/abstractfactory\/2005\/10\/only-debate-on-intelligent-design-that.html<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday, October 18, 2005 The only debate on Intelligent Design that is worthy of its subject  Moderator: We’re here today to debate the hot new topic, evolution versus Intelligent Des— (Scientist pulls out baseball bat.) Moderator: Hey, what are you doing? (Scientist breaks Intelligent Design advocate’s kneecap.) Intelligent Design advocate: YEAAARRRRGGGHHHH! YOU BROKE MY KNEECAP! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacefulhippo.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}