Talking of wack jobs, have a look at this guy who's building an enormous Ark in Maryland. It's apparently going to "house a Christian school, Bible college, 1,500 seat auditorium, conference facilities, a Noah's Ark historical room, counseling center, and facilities for radio and television". And it's not going to have all the animal shit and piss of the original Ark. God truly works wonders. 

What the religious left don't understand is that secularists - left and right - are correct. They're the only people who, in America, defend the First Amendment's Establishment Clause properly. Why isn't there anybody in American politics who is taking a satirical approach towards the fundies? There's so much for them to gain. People are pissed off about this vocal minority. 

I'm loathed to admit it, but Microsoft's new image search sounds quite good. 

Alternative Views in Education 

I sent the following email to my MP yesterday:

I'm writing to you regarding the introduction of the new "Gateway to Biology" syllabus being set out for GCSE students by the OCR examination board, which has garnered attention in the press (it has been covered by the Times, the Guardian and the BBC Education news website).

While some have been critical of the introduction of creationist theories in to the biological sciences, I do not think it goes far enough. I'd like to submit the following theories to the government to be considered for inclusion on the relevant GCSE syllabi.

1. The phlogiston theory of combustion.

2. The geocentric theory of planetary rotation - namely that all planets rotate around the Earth which is the centre of the universe.

3. The astrological theory of history - that the position of the stars at the time of one's birth can have a significant and predictable input on one's behaviour.

4. The "it never happened" theory of the Holocaust - that the gas chambers were used to delouse clothing, the piles of dead bodies found all died of natural causes, that there was no planned mass execution of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and political dissidents during the era of the Nazi rule of Germany and that Hitler had no knowledge or input in the planning of execution of this non-event despite statements such as "I made it plain that they, this parasitic vermin in Europe, will be finally exterminated".

5. The phrenological theory of human psychology - that the shape of one's head is a reliable predictor of human psychological attitudes and dispositions.

6. The stork theory of human origins - that human babies are not delivered through sexual reproduction as in the rest of the animal kingdom but through the delivery of the child by a stork.

7. The Disney stork theory of universal origins - that all animals are delivered through the stork method of reproductive transport, as in (6).

8. The backmasking theory of popular music - that there exists within popular music, mostly in the hard rock and metal styles, Satanic and other messags of dubious moral status (examples include "My sweet Satan", "Kill yourself" and "It's fun to smoke marijuana") which can be revealed when played backwards, and that these messages have caused listeners of this music to do a number of tragic and criminal actions, including murder, suicide attempts and going "off the rails".

9. The Afrocentric theory of history - namely, that all of our scientific and cultural innovations have been stolen from Africa. According to this theory, the two most important figures in Western cultural history, Socrates and Jesus, were both Black Africans who subsequent historians have "whitened".

10. The hollow earth theory of geology - that the Earth is totally hollow. Connected with this theory is the theory that below California there exists a city named "Telos" which sends out psychic messages about peace and prosperity to anyone who wants to know (enclose $20).

11. The mesmerist theory of psychology - that one can mesmerise patients in to a state of hypnotic trance and cure them in this position. Now not used so much for serious medical illnesses, but to do yuppie luxury operations such as penis extension, baldness treatment and breast enlargement.

12. The homeopathic theory of chemistry - that ultra-high dilutions of substances in water can have a bigger biological effect than the undiluted concentrate of the substance. Taken to the extreme, it means dropping one drop of the substrate in to the Atlantic ocean, stirring and then drinking a glass of water from it.

13. The polygraph theory of psychology - that physical symptoms can be detected reliably in order to see whether or not the subject is lying.

14. The Time Cube theory of cosmology - described at timecube.com.

15. Scientology - the belief that a character called Xenu visited the Earth and brought millions of souls with us, packaged in to volcanoes which we can access through finding our Operating Thetans and uncovering secret memories about intergalactic walruses and Martian bishops driving steamrollers.

You may recognise some of these as part of government practice already - item 12 is being offered on the National Health Service, and proponents of item 15 operate a drug-treatment programme which is advertised on London buses. If the government is going to allow the OCR examination board to examine creationist theories of human and biological origins, it is only fair that these other, sort-of scientific theories get looked at as well. They have as much evidence and scientific support as the creationist theory.

We wouldn't want politicians, currently debating the future of schooling in Britain, to deny children access to these many failed sciences. With the slowing access and take-up of rigourous scientific education, economically-savvy students will also be able to find career paths offering professional services that rely on the above-mentioned theories to people who have absolutely no clue what's going on.

Seriously, we've got brains for a reason. Perhaps someone in government could exercise theirs so that the next generation isn't as scientifically illiterate as the current one. Then we might be able to free ourselves of the cycle of pseudoscientific humbug that led those faith-based warriors to blow up large parts of central London last July.

As a trainee academic philosopher, my specialism is in attempts at scientific justifications for teleological arguments, and my dissertation is going to be a study of the failure of this field to provide us with anything of merit. Many other people are working on this topic, to try and provide the next generation with the tools to fight against this intellectual rubbish. Please don't let the government ignore the work we are doing in favour of pseudoscience.