Re: POTM nomination: the Dead ID Sketch

Lilith (Deanne Taylor) wrote:
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> From: "Smurfette" <Smurfe...@xxxxx>
> Newsgroups: talk.origins
> Subject: Re: Face to face with a secularist
> Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2005 11:07:18 GMT
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> "Beagle" <davidlongh...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:1134720077.598392.326350@f14g2000cwb.
> >
> > But if you're going to make these little sketches up, why not be a bit
> > more entertaining? You know, returning a dead parrot to a 'boutique'
> > and claiming it couldn't possibly evolved from bleedin' dinosaurs...
> >
>
> Customer: Hello. I wish to complain about this so-called 'scientific
> theory'
> what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very establishment.
>
> Salesman: Oh yes, 'Intelligent Design'. What, uh... what's wrong with
> it?
>
> Customer: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. Its vacuous,
> that's
> what's wrong with it!
>
> Salesman: No, no, uh... what we need now is to 'teach the
> controversy'...
>
> Customer: Look matey, I know an empty 'argument from incredulity' when
> I see
> one, and I'm looking at one right now.
>
> Salesman: No, no, it's not empty: it's just being elaborated.
> Remarkable
> theory, 'Intelligent Design', innit, eh? I mean, just look at all these
>
> books and articles: millions and millions of words...!
>
> Customer: The verbiage don't enter into it, my lad. It's stone dead.
> It's a
> non-starter. Empirically untestable, it belongs in metaphysics. This
> 'theory' makes no predictions; has no contribution to make beyond
> extended
> polemics; and can't even be honest about who it thinks the 'Designer'
> was.
> Bereft of all logical and epistemological credibility, it has no
> scientific
> status! If certain right-wing and fundamentalist pressure-groups hadn't
> hit
> upon it as a way of opposing decades of uncomfortable scientific and
> social
> progress, it'd be pushing up daisies! It's off the table. It's kicked
> the
> waste-paper bucket. THIS IS A NON-THEORY!
>
> Salesman: Well, I'd better replace it then. [takes a quick peek around]
>
> Sorry,
> squire: looks like that's all we've got...
>
> Customer: I see, I see. I get the picture.
>
> Salesman: I've got a piece of coal that looks quite a bit like a human
> tibia, if you squint at it...
>
> Customer: Pray, is it part of a theory that unifies the paleontological
> and
> biological sciences and leads to a powerful understanding of observed
> homologies and the nested hierarchy of life?
>
> Salesman: Not really.
>
> Customer: WELL IT'S HARDLY A BLOODY REPLACEMENT FOR DARWINISM THEN, IS
> IT?
>
> ----------
>
> Mich.

POTM my ***. I think it deserves at least an Academy Award! Get Liam
Neeson to do the voice!

Eric Root

.