On Aug. 9, the Kansas State Board of Education sent a draft of new science standards to the educational the research organization Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning in Colorado. In it, the board suggested teaching alternative theories to evolution.
The problem is, alternative theories to evolution have nothing to do with science.
Case in point: Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, a new religion (a tongue-in-cheek mockery of creationism) with its own alternative to evolution.
FSM's founder, Bobby Henderson, wrote to the Kansas Board of Education insisting on the importance of multiple viewpoints being discussed in school. (His theory: If creationism is taught alongside evolutionism, then Flying Spaghetti Monsterism should be taught as well.)
And he said that legal measures will be taken if their voices go unheard.
Henderson uses simple examples to help the public understand the erroneous principles behind FSM.
For instance, if one was to examine a glue board -- used for catching mice and other rodents -- its two functioning parts are obvious. There is a base made of heavy paper onto which glue is placed. A rodent walking over the paper will get stuck in the strong glue.
If, however, either the paper or the glue were taken away, the trap would not work. Henderson and FSM believers (also known as Pastafarians) argue that such mechanisms are "irreducible," evidence that these organisms could not have evolved without a designer.
Thus, Pastafarians believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster designed these organisms with his pasta appendage.
Anthropology assistant professor Mark Spencer -- who has a glue board on his desk to remind him of the analogy --dismisses such a claim. Spencer agrees that if the pieces of the glue board are taken away, the trap certainly cannot function as a trap.
The separated glue and board, however, can still serve functions -- even if different from that of a glue board. One can still write on a piece of paper. And the glue can be used to stick one's fingers together.
Evolutionary processes such as natural selection, genetic drift or mutation can explain how two separate mechanisms come together and form something completely different.
According to Spencer, scientists have proven such certainties using observable and testable data, or facts, while collecting volumes of empirical evidence.
But Pastafarians, to their credit, have provided some evidence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster's effect on humanity. And it seems incontestable.
In his letter to the Kansas Board of Education, Henderson cites a graph that conclusively links the Flying Spaghetti Monster to the rise in overall global temperature.
Henderson explains that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is angered at the catastrophic decrease in the seafaring pirate population over the last two hundred years. His graph clearly illustrates the inverse relationship between the decrease in the number of seafaring pirates and the rise of global temperature since 1800.
If the world does not increase the pirate population soon, His Noodleness will boil the seas, and we will all die.
Spencer believes he may have the answer to refute such an overwhelming lucid claim by Pastafarians. Spencer uses the phrase "God of the gaps," referring to the methodology of intelligent-design theorists when confronted with something they cannot explain.
This means they use a god, such as the Flying Spaghetti Monster, to explain away ideas that are, as of yet, unproven or unable to be tested.
In fact, there is no way to prove the decrease in pirates resulted in higher temperatures around the globe. Attributing such phenomena as rising temperatures to the Flying Spaghetti Monster is a science stopper.
The purpose of science, argues Spencer, is to close the gap between what we can explain and what we cannot.
FSM, and other design theories, are happy to give up science and stop the progression of understanding and knowledge that drives the human race.
While FSM claims to propose evidence pointing to the Flying Spaghetti Monster as the designer, there is a genuine gap in the Pastafarian argument -- it has absolutely no scientific basis.
Noah Lewkowitz is an architecture graduate student. You can reach him at noah.lewkowitz@asu.edu.
