The Smug Baldy Speaks

As reported in the Detroit Free Press and on StupidEvilBastard.com, Republican Dick DeVos is banking on the stupid vote in Michigan:

“Lots of intelligent people can disagree about the origins of life. In the end, I believe in our system of local control,” he said in a news release Wednesday afternoon. “Local school boards should have the opportunity to offer evolution and intelligent design in their curriculums.”

OK - that doesn’t sound so bad, does it? How about this?

DeVos said exposing students to the concept of intelligent design — viewed by most scientists as a nonscientific, religion-based belief — would help them analyze competing theories.

The notion of Intelligent Design is just like one of those squishy dolls, the ones where you push in their belly and the eyes pop out, or if you squeeze an arm, its head balloons. In this case, however, it’s a nice conceptual squishy doll, a rubbery case of circular reasoning that you can poke and prod with your so-called scientific method - but nothing ever sticks to it since intelligent design isn’t a real theory.

To me, this is another installment in the stupidification of our country - which can be accomplished via the politicization of science. More likely than not to hail from conservative quarters, stupidification arises whenever someone in power or seeking power appeals to your irrationality and emotion - or in this case - ignores the most basic tenents of scientific reasoning to score political points.

“I think it would be good to expose kids to all competing theories”, the man who thinks you’re stupid says.

Sure - tastes great. But it really is less filling. With respect to the creation of life on Earth - there are no real theories that compete with Evolution. There are variants of Evolution - but few alternative theories. Of the set of alternatives - intelligent design is not a member. The same goes with the accepted theories of how the universe began. Once again there is a dominant scientific theory that has some variants and maybe a few real competitors - none of which is known as intelligent design.

So, my theory is that Dick DeVos thinks the voters of Michigan are stupid. Oops - wait a minute. That’s not a theory either. I can’t possibly falsify the claim that he thinks you’re stupid - as it would require me to somehow know what it is he really thinks - which is actually impossible. Of course - you can’t falsify the claim either. So we’re left with that - I believe he thinks you’re stupid - and you cannot possibly prove me wrong.

We use the word theory so loosely in our culture that we forget that it really has meaning within the realm in which it was coined. We forget that all our verifiable knowledge is based on the concept of falsifiable theories - the dual nature of light, the theory of sound, signal detection theory. As a result - we’re too accepting as a culture of elevating just about any set of arguments to the level of a theory just because someone once wrote a few papers that had the word theory in them.

Here’s a real theoretical statement: Intelligent design (ID) is a theory. Let’s try to disprove it, shall we.

Q: Is ID testable?
A: No.

Done.

Ok - maybe that was too quick. Let’s take another track:

Q: Is ID falsifiable?
A: No.

Done.

Michigan - I feel sorry for you that this tool is on your ballot. Be comforted, though, that you’re still more progressive than my sweet home of Alabama.