JUST ON THE BORDER OF YOUR WAKING MIND

8:23pm: man what is it with me posting mostly serious things recently
Wow. Just... wow. Christ, once you're past the fairly tepid bits about the PARTIES and etc. this is just an incredibly compelling read. I think most people are going to focus on the central bit of it (the IDM tear-apart [NOTE: RICHARD D. JAMES COULD NOT BE REACHED FOR COMMENT]), although maybe they shouldn't. It's wonderful stuff, and completely damning to anyone still trying to pass this stuff off as science, but you don't get to the meat, the REALLY ugly parts, until the last fifty pages or so.

WOW folks I remember first hearing about this whole EYE DEE thing back in the middle of 2001. As I recall, I did some basic reading on it and decided that while 1) true irreducible complexity would be nearly impossible to prove conclusively, even moreso for "purposeful arrangement," and 2) the thrust of ID is negative in the sense that the case it makes is mostly just attacking evolution rather than doing anything to posit the case of an intelligent designer, still it seemed like a quirky little idea that at the very least wasn't going to do much harm and might actually do some good if the IDers could bring some meat in to back up their ideas. Needless to say, I no longer think this, not after the events of the past four years and not after reading the last part of the opinion linked above. Whatever remaining dross passing as "scientific" that ID started out with is now only a manifoldly dishonest cover for one of the most despicable moves that the religious right has ever made. Practically no one supporting this thing even knows, much less cares, that it doesn't agree with the Earth being only a couple of thousand years old and all, or that there's nothing remotely scientific about it aside from two essentially unprovable notions, yet because it has the air of something that might actually be ACCEPTABLE BY CONSTITUTIONAL STANDARDS it's become a goddamned bandwagon. Evolution by natural selection might be wrong if someone happens to find a certain black cat in a dark room, ergo THE LITERAL READING OF GENESIS IS CORRECT AND HOT DAMN WE ARE STANDING UP FOR JESUS.

I think I'd actually be less angry if the religious right was being straightforward rather than trying to cover their agenda with this crap that they neither read nor would even care about reading but know by hearsay says that THEY ARE RIGHT. MAN WE GOTTA GET THOSE DAMN HOMOSEXUAL ATHEIST PINKO IDEAS OUT OF OUR CLASSROOMS!!! HEY WHAT'S THIS?? SOME FRINGE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT THAT SAYS EVOLUTION'S WRONG??? PRAISE BE EVERYBODY IT'S BACK TO CHRIST!! [turn to page 11 if you actually read Bede and cynically decide to use his vague bullshit to push Evangelical Christianity in disguise OR turn to page 15 if you don't read him at all and assume they have proved that Hell has a precise physical location underneath the earth (which is flat). ONLY YOU CAN DECIDE WHICH IS MORE REPREHENSIBLE]

Seriously, within a couple of days time you're going to be hearing about ACTIVIST JUDGES and LEGISLATING FROM THE BENCH and so forth. It is complete and utter bullshit, and that should be clear to anyone checking the closing portions of this thing. No really, go read that last third about the school board. Read about ELECTED OFFICIALS telling folks disgreeing with them that they're going to hell because said disagreers don't want OF PANDAS AND PEOPLE in the curriculum. Read about one of the commissioners going into his church to ask for money to buy said books to donate to the public schools. Surely this isn't showing ID to be a de facto religious agenda and infringing on the separation of church and state!! OH WAIT even if it was it wouldn't matter, because said separation is a MYTH. I really can't decide if this stuff is sinister or laughable.

Anyways, seriously, it's worth a look. Hell, even better, someone needs to print and publish this thing. OR YOU CAN JUST RUN OFF A BUNCH OF COPIES AND LEAVE THEM ON BENCHES LIKE CHICK TRACTS.