Intelligent Design Attempts to Validate Star Trek Canon
Friday, May 13, 2005
(SNN Tokepa) While the Kansas Board of Education hearings on evolution ended yesterday, little was decided other than traditional scientists are godless heathens. The proposal being debated was whether state guidelines could be expanded to allow criticism of the theory of evolution and allow alternatives to be taught.
"I can only conclude that they don't have evidence (for evolution)," board member Connie Morris said.
Much of the testimony was made by the proponents of intelligent design as real scientists boycotted the hearings. Board members critical of evolution said the scientists' boycott had backfired. "I can only conclude that they don't have evidence (for evolution)," board member Connie Morris said.
The principles of intelligent design are brilliant in their stupidity. Basically, the idea says that the universe and life is too complicated to have evolved randomly, therefore humans must have been created by God, or possibly Satan, or robots, or aliens, or something.
This theory first appeared in an episode of Star Trek, the Next Generation episode 146 called “The Chase” (not to be confused with Dr. Who episode 016, the third story to feature Daleks). In "The Chase", Picard's crew finds evidence that four billion years ago the first human civilization explored our galaxy, and they were disappointed because they found themselves alone. To preserve their heritage, they spread encoded DNA fragments across many Class-M planets throughout the galaxy, thereby triggering a development similar to their own.
Detractors of intelligent design point out that this theory is contradicted in TNG episode 177
However, detractors of intelligent design point out that this theory is contradicted in TNG episode 177; “All Good Things”. In 177, Picard, with the help of Q, goes back in time to the inception of life on earth through a more scientifically accepted style of evolution. Some go as far at to say that episode 146 was just a lame attempt to explain why most aliens just looked like a guy in a mask.
So still the question remains, what will the Kansas Board of Education, of which the majority are creationists, vote for this summer: the lame excuses for episode 146 or the scientifically accepted 177.
The only thing that makes me even more nerdy than you, is that I remember that episode. I even think I liked it.
