Passion of the Spaghetti Monster
By Kathleen Craig
Bobby Henderson is holed up in the boonies — Corvallis, Oregon — hard
at work on his next entry into the fray over just what students should
learn about the origin of species.
When the Kansas Board of Education proposed balancing evolution
instruction by teaching intelligent design, said to be a scientific
theory that supports an "intelligent creator" of all life, the decision
outraged many, including 38 Nobel laureates.
Henderson responded with a satirical letter to the Kansas board demanding
equal time for a different, "equally scientific" theory of intelligent
design, in which a Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world.
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Pastafarianism, turned
into a phenomenon, appealing to scientists, academics and many others,
who flock to Henderson's website to pick up FSM mugs and T-shirts,
play games and learn about other school boards hostile to evolutionary
thought. The site now draws as many as 2 million hits a day.
Meanwhile, public debate over intelligent design is intensifying. One
Georgia suburb recently put warnings on biology texts stating evolution
was "a theory, not a fact," prompting a legal challenge by the American
Civil Liberties Union heard last Thursday in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals — a ruling is expected next year. And Tuesday, a federal
judge ruled that intelligent design couldn't be mentioned in biology
classes in Pennsylvania public schools, deciding a closely watched case
that evolved from a Dover, Pennsylvania, school board policy that
steered students to the intelligent design textbook Of Pandas and
People.
Now Henderson — a 25-year-old physics graduate — has banked a reported
$80,000 advance for the still unfinished The Gospel of the Flying
Spaghetti Monster, scheduled for publication in March. He isn't talking
much publicly while he writes, but he took time for an exclusive
conversation with Wired News about the Gospel, a future influenced by
intelligent design and his plans to build a pirate ship to convert
heathens.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,69905-0.html
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://www.xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
http://www.glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
http://www.sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
