inherently different

Life begins at Mach 7 with your hair on fire. There are things about living on the island that I find among the most awe inspiring pursuits you can undertake. Surfing is one of them. Lots of tourists come to Hawaii and learn to surf. They hop on a soft foam long board for a few hours, get up a few times, and have a few pictures taken so they can say they surfed in Hawaii… that they are officially surfers.

Far be it from me to poke holes in fantasy, but one, two, three hours surfing in waist deep water won’t make you a surfer… at least not in my eyes. Take off on a 10-12 foot swell, and ride through a spitting barrel while a sound like an avalance follows you like a predator looking for a quick snack and then I’ll agree that you’re a surfer.

These pictures were taken today near Honolua Bay on the North Shore of Maui. During the winter, the swell picks up and a normally calm bay turns into a churning meat grinder that turns even the most experienced surfers into quivering puddles of jelly. These waves aren’t even that big… at 12-15 feet, they’re tiny by North Shore standards. On the opposite end of the North Shore, Peahi (known affectionately as JAWS) reigns supreme, with faces reaching into the upper 50 foot range.

Want to come surfing with me?

If you’ve been blogging for any length of time, you meet a wide variety of characters… people who, for whatever reason, have issues with communication, veracity, and in some instances, reality.

I can honestly say that I’ve avoided most instances in which I could be accused of being a stalker, crazy, dishonest, or what have you. That is, I’ve avoided it until now. I am now among the millions of bloggers who are crazy. Hooray for me!

I could post a number of emails, IM requests, and comments that could shed more light on this, but I think it is time to lay this particular experience to rest. Lest it escalate into something that could be construed as evil…

UPDATE: We have detente, thus the blogger version of the Cuban Missle Crisis has been avoided… and for the record, I played the part of JFK… only taller and better looking.

My father is in town… I have not spent much more than a few hours with him in the last few years. He’s older than I remember and much more open minded. I wonder if that has more to do with the fact that he has realized that he’ll not live forever and needs to adjust his views to a different reality.

We’re having fun though. Today we went hiking across the lava fields, ate fish and calamari at Alexander’s, and ruined a whole roll of recently shot film by opening the camera without rewinding it before hand. Good times… tomorrow? Turkey day, gluttony and lots of wine. Hope you all have a happy thanksgiving!

Part Two: Intelligent Design vs. Evolution

On or about April 21, 1925, John Scopes, a biology teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, discussed with his biology students the section on evolution in the text book, Hunter’s Civic Biology. I say on or about because even the date of the incident is in dispute. That’s how contentious the issue is. The date of course, is irrelevant, but the incident itself resonates to this day. You see, this humble teacher, tasked with broadening the minds of his charges, began teaching from the state-approved textbook, but taught a principle that was illegal in the state of Tennessee at the time.

Now I won’t get into exactly how this relatively innocuous incident drew national headlines, but will say that for the most part, the whole incident was contrived by town leaders to generate as much press as possible in an effort to draw national attention to Dayton and fill the town’s coffers with money. That aside, the debate between evolution and creation finally had a national audience and pitted two of the nation’s most able orators against one another: Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan. So mighty was their argument, that you can see a dramatization based on their deliberation in the form of the movie, Inherit the Wind, starring Spencer Tracey and a relatively unknown Dick York (of Bewitched fame).

Today, that debate is once again drawing American media attention that rivals what it received in 1925. At issue is whether evolution, a "theory," should be taught as "scientific fact," and whether not an opposing view (creationism, or as it is now being spun, intelligent design) should also be presented to students. No matter what you read or hear, those who support intelligent design are masters of "spin," or the art of presenting an old idea in a new way. Lest we forget, intelligent design is simply creationism presented as scientific supposition. In order to make inroads into the American Mindset, creationists needed a shiny new wrapper to try tired old ideas. The idea of intelligent design, unlike naked creationism, tries to present religion as science, albeit a science based on God’s omnipotence. There has yet to be any real scientific proof to support the idea of intelligent design. For the most part, the real argument being made is whether or not the idea of intelligent design should be taught ALONGSIDE of evolution… in order to allow for "reasonable" minds to make an educated decision about which is the truth and which is just a myth perpetuated by godless heathens to undermine the sanctity of Christianity… er, or something.

Before we even get too deeply into the debate, we should define the word "theory" as it is used in a scientific context. A scientific theory, such as Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, is the most logical explanation of why things work the way they do. A theory is a former hypothesis that has been tested with repeated experiments and observations and found always to work. Theories may be redefined as new hypotheses are tested. Examples of theories: Newton’s Theory of Gravitation, Mendel’s theory of Inheritance, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. These theories are widely accepted as fact. There is scientific data culled from testing and physical evidence that supports the theory, hence it is accepted as fact.

I wanted to define this particular word because it is among the major points of contention for proponents of Intelligent Design. The word "theory" is the focal point for many of these creationists because to them, a theory is an unproven guess. But as I showed above, as the word applies to the scientific community, a theory isn’t a guess or wish, but a substantiated position on a given area of investigation through trial and research.

That aside, the debate over creationism vs evolution is filled with many agenda-driven exclamations on both sides. On one side you have supernatural passion and on the other rational elitism. It could be argued, at least at this point, that both of these positions are religions unto themselves. I mean, both sides have passionate support for their belief and little information is actually being shared as much as it is being dropped like bombs on Nagasaki in the hopes of obliterating the enemy.

I’ve considered what it is that Creationists are looking for when they present the idea that intelligent design should be taught in schools. I can’t seem to get away from the thought that their desire is based in fear. A fear that science is quickly demystifying our existence. That through the scientific method, we’re systematically destroying everything they hold dear, including the omnipotence of their god. Yes, it really is that simple… These people are simply afraid that science will one day prove there is no god. And for their part, scientists are perfectly willing to debunk the last great frontier of charlatans… our faith… A faith in that which cannot be, nor need be, proved. So long as it remains unprovable, they can believe they are not ultimately responsible for their lives. So long as it remains unprovable, they can rest easy knowing someone else has a plan for them even if they themselves have no clue what to do from one moment to the next. They are afraid that everything they believe in is bullshit. If it was me, I guess I’d fight it tooth and nail too.

The real question about whether or not intelligent design should be taught in public schools isn’t about whether there is a god or not, but whether or not a public institution, one that is paid for by my tax dollars, should push a religious ideology. The separation of church and state is guaranteed by the constitution of the United States and here we’re having a debate about how a religious position should be taught in a government sponsored institution. I’m not agnostic and I’m not atheist, but I do believe that there is a time and place for religion and at no point is that time and place within the walls of a tax-payer funded institution.

Part Three: Coming Soon.

Man has always been, and will always be, a frail, frightened creature that has an unparalleled need to make sense of an often chaotic and random world. As such, he has taken to worshipping the various forces of nature, heaven, and earth, to enforce the idea that others are ultimately responsible for their well-being, luck, survival, etc. It allows them to pass off responsibility to supernatural forces… "it’s god’s will," or "the devil made me do it."

All religion stems from that ultimate need to make sense of the universe. Among the many ways those of a religious bent use to prove the idea that there is an all-powerful God hovering above us is intelligent design.

Proponents of intelligent design believe that there is an "intelligent" force or agent ultimately responsible for certain features of the universe and all its creatures. They deny the value or veracity of natural selection because it leaves the success or failure of mankind up to chance and… to an idea that isn’t based on compassion… a proponent of intelligent design disregards the basic idea that the strongest and fittest shall survive and not the meek, just, and moral. This is an unacceptable ideology to someone who believes that good always triumphs over evil.

When a feature or ability of a given creature defies scientific explanation, for instance the Bombadier Beetle, most intelligent design proponents choose to believe that it is the work of divine intervention or supernatural meddling. In most cases, they use this idea to prove that god exists and because god exists, then evolution can’t be true. Intelligent designers, afterall, are nothing more than modern-day creationists.

Arguing with a creationist or their modern day breathren, the intelligent designers, is a fruitless exercise. Not because rational thought is lost on them, it is of course, but because regardless of what you tell them, regardless of what you show them, they’ll stand up and say the world is flat… just like the church did hundreds of years ago when heretics like Galileo posited that the Earth revolved around the sun and not vice versa. You can always count on religion to ignore the obvious if it doesn’t promote their ideas.

Like early sailors who believed the Earth was flat and one could sail off the end of the world, people who subscribe to intelligent design are clearly functioning without reason, believing in the most absurd ideas because they have "faith." These are the same people who argue that a beetle’s ability to concoct an explosive chemical within its carapace without blowing itself to smithereens and are usually the first to discount the existence of dinosaurs despite millions of skeletal remains that prove otherwise…

I don’t know much, but I do know we don’t know much about anything. Among the things I do know though is that intelligent design is wishful thinking. It is also willful ignorance because it discounts hundreds of years of science and rational thought. And that is where I start to wonder whether or not the problems we have as humans stem from our inability to just accept that we may never know what’s what. That our problems stem from our continuous need to make sense of a senseless world. Something’s got to give folks and clearly reason is the first thing to be thrown off the foundering ship that is religion. Like a psychotic that just "knows" that people are listening to his conversations, a religious nut just "knows" that god created man and the world he rules and no amount of old bones, celestial evidence, or scientific conjecture will sway him/her from the foundation of their belief.

I don’t discount that there is magic afoot. Happy accidents have always been magic to me anyway. That we’re here on Earth against all odds proves that there is magic still. The questions we should be asking are not, "Why are we here?" and "where do we come from?" but instead, the questions should be, "Why are we STILL here?" and "where are we going?"

Part Two, in which I prove the existence of idiots, Coming Soon!