W(h)ither the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
This post is out of date slightly because there have been a few entwined posts touching on similar subjects and I’ve been trying to pull them apart to make some sense.
The post that started this off is the Flying Spaghetti Monster and I at Scientific American. John Rennie explains why he doesn’t like the FSM becoming the new symbol of evolution.
“…my misgivings are essentially the same ones that I have about the famous Darwin fish insignia: the FSM may antagonize many religious people to whom it registers primarily as a slap at their faith, not at I.D.”
There are some thoughtful responses.
The people we have to convince are the people in the middle. These are people who are swayed by 30-second attack ads and one-sentence sound bites. They don’t need to hear a doctoral thesis on evolution. Their eyes glaze over if you start talking about evidence. They want to hear opinion, and they get plenty of it from the fanatics.
They need to hear the other side, and they need to hear it loud. They need to hear that the conspiracy is not for evolution — proponents of evolution have actual evidence on their side. The conspiracy is, in fact, against evolution. They need to hear what scientists truly think of ID. They need to hear that ID is so removed from science, that real scientists not only don’t believe in ID, they scoff at it.
And from Immunoblogging:
So as a theist, do I feel any personal affront from the FSM? Well, no and really I couldn’t care less. Some made up flying pile of spaghetti that touches people with it’s noodly appendage, aside from being disturbing isn’t going to bother me. It’s a clear and obvious parody of the arguments that ID advocates make and if they get upset because it’s ‘mocking’ Christianity then all the better. It simply helps expose the inherit connection between ID and fundamentalist Christian creationism, because the FSM is making fun of a lot of religions but in a specific context.
What is the context?
The original letter makes it clear. It’s an attack on blind adherence to belief. As it stood it’s great but there’s more to the FSM than that.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster. Uploaded by Carsten Hahn.
The image of the Sistine Chapel isn’t the work of a Southern Baptist. Its recognisable and iconic to Christianity as a whole. Similarly, the blessing RAmen, is a clear parody of Amen. That’s not a fundamentalist innovation like I.D. That’s all Christianity.
This isn’t a problem if you take the time to examine the context of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but if your introduction is a scientist say “Aaaarghhhh! I be looking for the strippers and the beer mountain!” is your first reaction likely to be “Hmmm. I imagine there’s an interesting and thoughtful story behind that.” Or to flip it around – if I founded Satanists for Evolution as a satirical ploy to show that evolutionary biologists weren’t Satanists by publicly castigating them, do you think that would aid public understanding of evolution? What short message would a person distracted by screaming kids take from the news story below?
Now what message does the same person take away when they see a scientists (never a fundamentalist) talking about the Flying Spaghetti Monster? They’d certainly understand if the examined the context, but the ID strategy is uses strategies like taking quotes out-of-context and the use of non-sequiturs. If people were taking the time to put the arguments in context then ID wouldn’t be an issue.
I think by bringing up the FSM in the context of I.D. and slamming it you can make a powerful point. If you conflate Intelligent Designer with the Flying Spaghetti Monster, then from a “scientific” I.D. that’s reasonable – it’s a possible designer. It’s then for I.D. proponents to demonstrate they’re creationists by bringing up the fact they’re really talking about the Christian god. Then I’d hope you’d have made the argument explicit that you’re fighting to keep a religious idea out of science classes, rather than mocking Christianity as a whole. I think if you’re going to try and sway Christian opinion I don’t think that telling them their central cosmology is wrong will help.
This is where it gets messy.
Elsewhere PZ Myers (see here, here and many other entries at Pharyngula) and Ophelia Benson (see here, here and many other entries at Butterflies and Wheels) having been arguing that kowtowing to religious sensibilities is not productive to promoting rational thought. I agree with this too.
I’ve got trouble reconciling the two opinions. I could just accept I’m an inconsistent individual and leave it at that. Are the two opinions in opposition to each other. Will at Nomadic Thoughts hasn’t helped with a well-reasoned post which concludes “I am becoming increasingly convinced, however, that the coexistence of a consistent theistic worldview and science is not possible.”
I think the answer might come from Steven Jay Gould. He noted that a consistent Christian worldview isn’t possible regardless of what science says. Was man created before the animals. Your answer depends on whether you read Genesis 1 (no) or Genesis 2 (yes). This isn’t a debate you can enter into scientifically. It’s purely a question for Christianity. Equally whether or not evolution and Christianity are compatible isn’t a scientific question – it’s a question for Christians.
I think this shows there are two debates. One is the coherence of Christianity and evolution. For this argument it doesn’t matter whether atheism is a religion, what Islam thinks about evolution, or if there still apes around. The one question that matters is: Can you accept evolution and the Christian god? Some people say yes, a smaller but more vocal minority say no. The other debate is “When it is acceptable for personal belief to take precedence over evidence-based reasoning?” That’s a different debate and the presence of all faiths and none in science labs would suggest that there is no hard and fast position held by scientists as a group.
The arguments over the reality of evolution and the reality of gods are two separate arguments. I think John Rennie is right when he suggests the Flying Spaghetti Monster may conflate the two.
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