Xordelia (dot) COM

As an atheist raised in a Judeo-Christian household, I find this topic to be particularly interesting. As someone who watched all of the Dr. Dino videos in church as a kid, I am very familiar with a lot of the far-right “intelligent” design arguments (see http://www.drdino.com/). Without getting too political, I was horrified that so many schools in the bible belt (Southern US) were trying to get “intelligent” design put into schools, presenting religious dogma as science, especially during the presidency of George W. Bush. Creationism is NOT science and has no place in a science classroom; if presented in public schools, it should only be presented in a comparative religions class giving other religions equal emphasis. Creationism and Intelligent Design are not scientific theories because they do not follow the scientific method. They do not analyze data proving or disproving a hypothesis and they are not open to peer review. They must either be accepted or rejected. Intelligent Design is figuratively black or white whereas science has a lot of grey area and is constantly changing and correcting itself. To be objective, Intelligent Design in its most recent manifestation is finally at least making an effort to be loosely scientific. Creationists are now trying to disprove science, citing religious dogma as evidence, instead of using a completely faith-based approach. For instance at http://www.intelligentdesign.org/ they actually say that Intelligent Design has nothing to do with the bible and is common sense regardless of what one’s religious beliefs are. When asked if creationist theory is the same as intelligent design, they reply “No. Intelligent design theory is simply an effort to empirically detect whether the “apparent design” in nature acknowledged by virtually all biologists is genuine design (the product of an intelligent cause) or is simply the product of an undirected process such as natural selection acting on random variations. Creationism is focused on defending a literal reading of the Genesis account, usually including the creation of the earth by the Biblical God a few thousand years ago. Unlike creationism, the scientific theory of intelligent design is agnostic regarding the source of design and has no commitment to defending Genesis, the Bible or any other sacred text. (http://www.intelligentdesign.org/faq.php)” One would have to question the truthfulness of this statement however, noting that “god”, “bible” and various pronouns for “god” are capitalized, implying that his site has a Judeo-Christian affiliation. Regardless, it is downright untrue for this website to call Intelligent Design a scientific theory.

A very interesting article validating my opinions is http://is.gd/2pBMP (link has been shortened), which was written by Glenn Branch, the deputy director of the National Center for Science Education. His ultimate conclusion is “Creationism is not just a legal failure. It is a scientific failure as well. Scan the scientific research literature: There are no signs that anyone is using creationism, whether as creation science or its newfangled form of intelligent design, to explain the natural world. In contrast, not a year passes without the appearance of thousands of scientific publications that apply, refine, and extend evolution (http://is.gd/2pBMP). “ Ultimately, thank your deity of choice that we have a supreme court that enforces the separation of church and state clause in our constitution. Otherwise the American education system would be even more flawed. Hopefully during his presidency, President Obama will make a difference in the science education throughout the US, especially in the Southern states, enforcing our laws requiring educators to acknowledge only evolution in the classroom.

Wow it feels good to be back to blogging! Anyway, here with go with social commentary.

Let me preface this with saying that I am taking a Communications class this semester as part of my humanities requirement for my major. I signed up for a Saturday 8am class which usually means you get a monotone adjunct professor. However, I got lucky and got this awesome guy who is completely profound. And pretty damn entertaining too. His background is in Anthropology which is super interesting anyway, so he definitely adds a Anthropological and Psychological theme to the class.

Anyway, today we had a conversation in class about how our society is inherently sexist. And he proved it. The professor drew a square on the board and inside of the square was 4 squares. He labeled the two columns as male and female and the two rows as “sexually active” and “not sexually active”. He then asked the class to shout out words, however inappropriate, for each category.

For women who were sexually active, they shouted out things such as slut, whore, skank, bitch, ho, tramp, etc. For women who were not sexually active, thing such as prude, goody-goody, nun, etc were shouted out.

For sexually active men, things such as “the man”, pimp, stud, etc were shouted out. Men not sexually active were labeled as pussy, fag, sissy, Momma’s boy, etc.

The general theme was that men who are sexually active were judged as attractive and good. Men who were not sexually active were judged as bad. Women were judged as bad regardless.

The insults for men who were not sexually active were words relating them to women such as pussy, bitch, sissy, momma’s boy, etc. Therefore it was pointed out that the biggest insult you can call a man is something that related them to a woman. To the point where a lot of them would attack you if you called them such things.

He then went on to explain that the stereotype of a gay man is someone who is feminine, knows about fashion, has sex with men (like women), etc – and that since a gay man is related to a woman, he is looked down upon and socially inappropriate.

The finally major shocking point was when the professor asked the girls in the class to raise their hands if they have ever looked at another woman and called her a slut in their head. The entire class raised their hands. He then told them that they were using the same words and phrases that are used to oppress them, against other women, showing them that they contributed to their own social stigma.

To me, the most interesting part of this is, that no matter how much we say we are open minded, well rounded, do not judge, love everyone the same – we really do not. Women themselves are guilty of the same things as men – thinking as their culture and social norms have programmed them to think. No matter how much we try or would like to, culture is impossible to escape.

Pretty profound, huh?