A New Alternative to the Theory of Evolution: Spiteful Design!

[Plaid Adder]

I was talking about the whole "intelligent design" thing with some friends of mine (if you haven't read the letter about the Flying Spaghtetti Monster, I urge you to do so; you can find it by Googling "his noodly appendage") and I came up with a theory I like much better than Intelligent Design: Spiteful Design!

Think about it--there are so many things about how the world works that are just so messed up it's unbelievable. Why should we assume that all of them have been engineered by some benevolent intelligent being? Wouldn't it make more sense to see things like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, retroviruses for which there is no vaccine, disgusting and destructive internal parasites, and so on, as evidence of a creative force which is, well, in kind of a bitchy mood, and taking it out on us?

I demand that Spiteful Design be taught in Kansas classrooms along with Intelligent Design and its fellow 'alternative' scientific theories, such as Idiotic Design, Absurdist Design, Totally Fucking Incompetent Design, Holy Shit What Was I Drinking Last Night Design, and other similar theories. After all, intelligent design is just a theory, and no more or less scientifically proven than the Sweated Out Of The Frost Giant's Armpit Theory, the Sneezed Into The Great Cosmic Handkerchief Theory, and many others.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[NorCalDem]

1. Recommended!

Good one PA!

[lenidog]

2. I always figured that I mean just look at the Platypus

thats enough to give an evolutionist a nervous breakdown:P

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

3. Awesome. Perfect. Love it.

Cheers.:toast:

[Spinzonner]

4. Personally, I favor "Shoulda Tossed that Prototype" Design

Tried to wash it away with the Great Flood but even that didn't work right. And that damn Noah and his boat fetish had to try and interfere.

Just goes to prove that sometimes you get stuck with the first one, so you better get it right.

[MisterP]

5. the coming of the Great White Handkerchief!

[smartvoter]

6. LOL. I am going to raise the BP of some RW friends with this. Thanks!!nt

[Peace Patriot]

7. Well, that's exactly what the Gnostics believed (the earliest Christians)-

--spiteful design.

And you gotta wonder about an evolutionary scheme that produced George Bush, Karl Rove and Karen Hughes.

Seems pretty spiteful to me.

[H2O Man]

8. I think it worthy

of being placed on stone tablets outside republican strongholds. It makes more sense than anything Falwell and co. say.

[Liberaler]

9. The Book of Creation...

I'm not sure if anyone has read The Book of Creation, it's funny and very difficult for any creationist to argue against: http://www.palmyra.demon.co.uk/humour/genesis.htm

[undeterred]

10. Menstruation and painful childbirth

evidence of "you're gonna pay for this" design.

[Lisa]

11. I love it!

I've been leaning towards the "Make-Work Project Design" theory myself, ever since I started reading about stochastic factors in evolution (e.g. why some traits which appear to be inconvenient if not fatal seem to become more prevalent in isolated populations). Watching "The Time Bandits" also contributed to this ... plus, living in Canada, I'm used to powerful agencies doing useless and apparently-dumb things so I have no trouble envisioning Heaven as being like, for example, the Employment and Immigration department.

One, it puts all those subordinate angels to work. If they have to run around designing dozens of subtly-different chipmunk populations to inhabit a series of habitats that are being isolated from each other by climate change and logging -- or turning some black bears white even if there's no apparent evolutionary advantage -- they're going to be way too busy to make trouble like that Lucifer guy.

Two, it creates extra headaches for both scientists and theologians. Both parties have to do some research and try to explain why various phenomena don't fit into their theories. If there's one thing I'm pretty sure of about God -- if She exists, She doesn't like smartasses, be they secular or religious. I suspect it's because She doesn't want anybody deciding that they know how everything works. I think She is onto something, because those people inevitably start ordering the rest of us around. And the next thing you know, some idiot is yapping about "Women are evolutionarily predisposed to do housework", or "this continent belongs to us because of the right of lebensraum", or "it's against nature to form same-sex couples".


I'm now working on developing a related theory, the "I Honestly Don't Know How It Got In There, Sorry About That" school of design. I got it when I was thinking about the human appendix ... but that's another journal article.

[DavidDvorkin]

12. Brilliant!

Write it up somewhere. On a Web site. Or better yet, a book! Then you can go on the lecture circuit and become famous and rich.

[the_spectator]

13. Yes! The Buddhist argument for atheism.

"Spiteful Design" - perfect. In addition to all the atrocities you mentioned, there's the fact that nothing is certain but sickness, aging and death. Plus the whole law of nature / evolution thing, which is all about violence in a way. Nature is red in tooth and claw. All about eating or being eaten. And what eating produces ain't too pretty either at the other end. Etc. Etc.

So I think the Buddhists would say that "Spiteful Design"(love it!) is proof, in fact, that "God" the Creator can't exist. Then they do the whole, don't ask about this arrow piercing you - the arrow of existence as we know it- don't ask where it came from, or who made it, or what it was made of, or about its aerodynamics, or trajectory it took before it buried itself in you: instead, pull it out! (This way to Enlightenment.)

Of course the whole arrow-thing is kind of a finessing of the issue, but still it makes a lot more sense than any other story, I think. At least the Buddhists know there's something that has to be finessed.

[Plaid Adder]

18. Yeah, we were just talking at dinner about how attachment

is the root of all human suffering. True, perhaps, but I know myself, and my chances of reducing attachment are pretty much zero. Because attachment is also the source of great joy, depending on who you get attached to.

Anyway, "nature red in tooth and claw" comes from Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, which was among other things one of the early attempts to wrestle with the psychological and moral implications of the new understanding of nature. If I'm remembering this right _In Memoriam_ was actually written before _Origin of the Species_ appeared, but Tennyson is clearly reacting against the scientific reading of reproduction and mortality. _In Memoriam_ will kill you if you take it too seriously and try to read the whole thing, but I have always enjoyed declaiming the "nature's a cruel heartless bitch" sections, especially when Nature winds up yelling, "I CARE FOR NOTHING! ALL SHALL GO!!!!"

My point, and I do have one, is that Tennyson's revulsion at the whole process of selection is in some ways the inverse of Darwin's feelings about it. For Darwin, and for a lot of the scientists who took up his work, evolution seemed to provide a purpose to a process that might otherwise seem random: the drive for species survival becomes the Prime Mover. In some formulations, evolution becomes in a way a variant of Intelligent Design: there's no _consciousness_ directing all of this, but the survival drive becomes the power behind the scenes that directs all of this seemingly wasteful and chaotic stuff.

Being an equal opportunity skeptic, I am as skeptical of people who try to use the theories of natural and sexual selection to explain human behavior (thinking mainly of Jared Diamond's _The Third Chimpanzee_ here) as I am of people who tell me I'm going to hell because it was Adam and Eve, not Lillith and Eve. I think mainly what's going on, all the time, is that human beings are wired to want patterns and therefore tend to perceive them whether or not they exist. I do the same thing myself; I just don't write letters to my state representatives demanding that the Plaidder Theory of Creation be taught alongside the theory of evolution.

Because, you see, the point of a science class is to teach science. Now the science they are teaching now may in fact be wrong. Plenty of things that were accepted as scientific fact 50 years ago have turned out to be a load of crap that people bought into for reasons that have nothing to do with empirical research. But all you can do in a science class at the high school level is teach kids what the discipline accepts as true. You want to talk about whether evolution can fully explain the beauty of creation (or the spitefulness of creation), go do it in a literature class or a philosophy class or Bible study.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[the_spectator]

20. Thanks for the insightful and informative response!

This here newbie appreciates it! Love your work!
:woohoo:

[Peace Patriot]

26. I don't quite agree.

"...all you can do in a science class at the high school level is teach kids what the discipline accepts as true." --Plaid Adder

The essence of science is puzzlement, curiosity, experimentation and the formulation of testable hypotheses, and maybe even ones for which the tests do not yet exist. To "teach kids what the discipline accepts as true" is not enough; it misses the essence--that, a) we didn't always know this; someone like you discovered it or figured it out; b) it could be wrong; do not slavishly accept ANY authority on any scientific matter, including me.

My experience is in the teaching of English literature. Teachers of this subject seldom teach that language is a living, breathing, changing, vital, functional element of human life. It is not a set of books. It is not an dictionary. And it once had no books and no dictionaries and no rules except EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION. William Shakespeare spelled his own name six different ways and didn't care a crap how anybody else thought it should be spelled.

You might think I taught anarchy. I did not. I was a strict and demanding English teacher, when I thought that that was appropriate to the subject and useful for the students (--something they NEEDED to know, or to be good at). But I respected, and taught respect for, the GENIUS of language, and the magic of individual genius in creating language and stories, and that every human being OWNS the language and must make it their own, and change it as they need to (--as I did just now in avoiding the use of his/her, and instead using "they"). (--could write a whole volume about THAT.)

I'm not a scientist, but I do read a lot about science, and I gather that a similar situation is present in science teaching. Teachers load students up with what is known, and often fail to point them in the direction of what is not known--the exciting part.

It can't begin too early. I don't know why you think that creativity in science begins after high school. Maybe you didn't mean to say that.

I also think that this "design" thing SHOULD BE discussed in science class. It is a raging controversy in biology quite apart from the "Creationist" controversy. Was Nature aiming at US when She threw that paintbox against the wall? (Stephen Jay Gould thinks it's the "white man's burden" to delude himself that She cared a damn whether she created us or not. She was just having fun with LOT OF COLORS!)

Or, why are planets round? Why do solar systems...exist? Why do THINGS exist? Why isn't it all just scattered, shattered subatomic particles everywhere? It all seems so ORGANIZED--even if we don't understand all the principles of organization. Is it all just gravity? (--the physicist's answer to everything; "gravity".)

Or, why do OUR MINDS try to to organize everything? Why do we WANT to see design? And are we imposing some peculiarity of our minds on everything else?

In this context, I think that the implied DESIGNER should be discussed.

I disagree with Carl Sagan on his dislike of neoplatonism--the mother of modern science. I think neoplatonism should be given more respect, and that modern scientists should get off their own pedestals as the High Priests of Reality, and start expanding their subject to include the full capabilities of the human mind and all of reality, which, if physics and cosmology are anywhere near the truth today, is mind-boggling in its vastness and chock full of extraordinary puzzles and mysteries that we have only just begun to perceive, let alone understand. In those subjects, at least, what is "accepted as true" is being turned inside out and upside down every other week. To fix students on what is "accepted as true" does them a disservice. And I think it may be true in all subjects.

"Creative design" is probably a more accurate phrase than "intelligent design." Throwing the paintbox at the wall and then messing around and having fun. Thus, the universe.

[Guaranteed]

14. Hmmm....but how does Spiteful Design explain the fact that dogs

are so cute and loving? Or that ice cream tastes so good? Or that unbelievable feeling when you're having an orgasm?

[the_spectator]

15. Maybe like this?

Little dogs are cute and loving to be fed.

Ice cream tastes so good because it seems to fulfill one of our own particular eating cravings. And you can't just keep eating even the best - you eventually get sick of it. Then hungry again. The the desire/suffering begins again.

And orgasms! Well they are so good because existence needs us to reproduce before we die, and keep the endless cycle of samsara(illusion) going.

Plus, think about the Beautiful things in this world, like flowers - always SO ephemeral - again, which exist, to attract the bees and continue the cycle of samsara also. And flowers produce sweet fruit, to prick the desire of an animal to eat it, then to shit it out elsewhere, so that a new plant can take root and enter into the permanent lists of struggle that even plants face with their neighbors, for light and for water.

Don't mean to really be a "Debbie Downer" but on these kind of deep questions that the Plaid Adder has touched on, I think a certain pessimism is realistic.

[Guaranteed]

16. But what about the silver linings in the clouds?

The fact that our dying keeps the world from getting overpopulated and disease from running rampant. The fact that pain keeps us from doing things that are bad for us. Or that being deadly sick can actually help us to appreciate that we were ever alive at all?

[RPM]

19. keeps ups from over-population? Your kidding right?

anyway.... good thinking Plaid. Recommended.

[Guaranteed]

21. No, I'm not.

I think the world works awful well when you think about it.

[Lisa]

17. well, in the case of my neighbor's dog ...

the cute and loving part is a cunning ploy -- he (the dog, not the neighbor) has taken to tagging along with my landlady's little girl. The dog now comes into the house and eats the cat's food, and makes messes -- and nobody dares to reprimand him because he is so darned cute (and the little girl will cry). I was taking out the garbage last week, and the dog rushed up and bit me twice. Part of it is because the dog thinks this is HIS territory, thanks to all the encouragement he's been getting.

Ice cream -- and bacon too -- they taste so good, but if you give in to temptation and eat them frequently, they'll affect your health. Tell me that isn't some kind of trap! It's like some slow-acting ant bait. Not too efficient, since it doesn't stop us from reproducing -- but it does affect life expectancy and overall enjoyment of life.

And my theory about the orgasm is that it's a way to trick humans into obsessing and twisting their lives around -- like a drug, people will sometimes lie, cheat, and even kill for that moment of pleasure. A manipulative and mean-spirited entity might get quite a chuckle out of that (plus the fact that many species look rather ungainly when they're striving for that orgasm).

[JackDragna]

22. Way ahead of you.

Check this out. Gives a lot of things in the universe that are nonsensical, malicious or both.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/4/part2.html

[lapfog_1]

23. HA!

I'm adopting this as a prime tenet of my long time religion... Laugh along with God. One obtains a level of spirituality only when one accepts the truth that God created Man for His own entertainment. Sort of a Seinfeld, except on a universe wide scale (at least a planet wide scale, the rest of the universe could be all sports channels or something)

[Orsino]

24. God is not dead...

...and it turns out he's a total bastard.

[alfredo]

25. Pay toilets and the impenetrable plastic bags in cereal boxes

are sure signs of a spiteful God.

[ZombieNixon]

27. If you want a prime example of spiteful design, you need to look no furthe

r than the male organ.

Seriously, the thing doesn't really fit anywhere else (if you saw one on a tree, what would you think?), it causes envy and/or arrogance to its bearer, based on size, and you run the risk of getting it caught in the office copy machine on Nude Fridays!

I figure God just had and extra bit with no place to put it and just stuck it on the first thing He/She/It/They saw (or didn't see in case He/She/It/They don't exist).

;)

[Plaid Adder]

28. I can't remember the rest of the joke...

...but there's some joke that was going around a while back where the punch line was that God must be a civil engineer because only a civil engineer would route the main waste disposal route through a major recreational area.

I keep saying we need a <rimshot> icon.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[Fritz67]

29. The Spaghetti Monster

I was talking about the whole "intelligent design" thing with some friends of mine (if you haven't read the letter about the Flying Spaghtetti Monster, I urge you to do so; you can find it by Googling "his noodly appendage")

Just to save everyone some trouble, it's at http://www.venganza.org

And it's worth it.