SETI and Intelligent Design

[SirUlli]

If you?re an inveterate tube-o-phile, you may remember the episode of ?Cheers? in which Cliff, the postman who?s stayed by neither snow, nor rain, nor gloom of night from his appointed rounds of beer, exclaims to Norm that he?s found a potato that looks like Richard Nixon?s head.

This could be an astonishing attempt by taters to express their political views, but Norm is unimpressed. Finding evidence of complexity (the Nixon physiognomy) in a natural setting (the spud), and inferring some deliberate, magical mechanism behind it all, would be a leap from the doubtful to the divine, and in this case, Norm feels, unwarranted.

Cliff, however, would have some sympathizers among the proponents of Intelligent Design (ID), whose efforts to influence school science curricula continue to swill large quantities of newspaper ink. As just about everyone is aware, these folks use similar logic to infer a ?designer? behind such biological constructions as DNA or the human eye. The apparent complexity of the product is offered as proof of deliberate blueprinting by an unknown creator ? conscious action, presumably from outside the universe itself.

What many readers will not know is that SETI research has been offered up in support of Intelligent Design.
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Read the Full Story

http://www.seti.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ktJ2J9MMIsE&b=194993&ct=1638783

Sir Ulli

 

[CheesePoofs]

Thanks for the link, SirUlli. I read that story and it is quite interesting.

I'm going to be participating in a model congress in January and I plan on introducing a bill to remove federal funding from all schools teaching Intelligent Design in the science classroom, so hopefully this article will come in handy during the debate. 🙂

 

[mrwizer]

Scary stuff. Thanks SirUlli 🙂