The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Bobby Henderson

They can, and in fact, they must. Intelligent design may shun natural explanations for phenomena, but FSMism makes use of both the natural and the supernatural equally.

      FSMISM

      INTELLIGENT DESIGN

1. Al dente.

       What’s the Matter with Evolution?

      Highlighting the Problem

      WE HEAR A LOT ABOUT EVOLUTION these days. Scientists seem to have embraced the subject as though it were the Second Coming of … well … science. But where has it got us? Are we to believe that just because we’re descended from a common ancestor shared with monkeys, dogs, or whatever, that we understand our situation on this earth any better than we would without Evolution to guide us? Is Evolution going to somehow make my life more satisfying? Can Evolution put food on my table? Will it save the earth from global warming?

      The answer to all of the above is a big No. And why is that? Because Evolution is about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. Sure, scientists while away their days trying to devise this or that proof to show that Evolution is a credible idea, but as long as it’s just a theory, no one in the real world is going to take it seriously. So I’ve decided to do some debunking of my own to show the world that the big, bad scientists aren’t “all that,” as the kids like to say.

      What is Evolution but the gradual change of species over a lengthy period of time as a result of various internal and external selective pressures? My grandfather, who is as old as dirt, has been through that. According to early lithographs, he was quite a looker in his day, but now, a century later, after years of hard drinking and working in the mines, he has no hair and looks like shit. Could Evolution just mean growing old? I posed this question to a scientist friend who explained that the change has to take place over many generations. You’d think the Evolutionists would have stated that right out front, and I admit that I stand corrected. But Evolution still sounds a lot like growing old to me, and I can’t help thinking that this is where the Evolutionary scientists first got their wacky ideas.

      Having cleared up this common confusion, let us move on to the proposed selective force of Evolution—namely, Natural Selection. What on Earth is this supposed to mean? Is there unnatural selection? And who’s doing the selecting? Neither of these questions could be answered by my scientist friend, and so I have been forced to ditch my now former friend and perform my own research. What follows is, to the best of my ability, what I’ve been able to uncover regarding Evolution and Natural Selection.

      A Closer Examination of Natural Selection

      Apparently, there are not one but two forms of selection. They are Natural Selection and sexual selection. I’ll let you mull over the second “sexy” form of selection for a minute, at least until I’ve torn the first one to shreds.

According to the neo-Darwinists, most Evolutionary change is attributable to Natural Selection, meaning that individuals carrying genes that are better suited to their environment will leave more offspring than individuals carrying genes that make them less adaptive. Over time, these more adaptive traits will proliferate, altering the genetic composition of the overall population, since individuals with better “fitness”¹ pass more of their genes into the next generation. It is this process, scientists will tell you, that produced the platypus, the penguin, and the poodle—leading us to conclude that scientists are definitely full of shit. If someone can explain to me the adaptive traits of the “duck-bill,” then they can certainly tell me why the platypus is the only mammal on the planet that has one? Are platypii (-pusses … who knows?) concerned with ingratiating themselves into local duck populations? Do they think that they’re funny? Why do they have a bill?

      I’ll take it easy on the scientists regarding the platypus, because obviously it’s a tough one, but I’m sure there are several hundred scientists right now earning their tenure in a pointless search for the Evolutionary significance of this ridiculous creature. I’ll close on the platypus by stating an alternative theory that I’ve come up with: the Flying Spaghetti Monster made the platypus because, unlike scientists, He has a sense of humor. It’s an unlikely sign from God—and until someone can prove me wrong, that’s my theory.

I will next turn to more ordinary and boring examples of Natural Selection, which I will then proceed to slice to ribbons. Let us look at the fascinating case of bacteria. It is well known that antibiotics are used to cure various illnesses caused by bacteria, and it is equally well known that most bacteria (for example, staphylococci)² eventually develop immunity to these antibiotics. Looking a little closer at the case of staphylococci, we find that, in 1929, Sir Alexander Fleming³ first observed the bacterium staphylococci to experience inhibition on an agar plate contaminated by a penicillium⁴ mold. Sir Alexander Fleming, or “F-Man” as the queen liked to call him, isolated the penicillium to make penicillin, which then went on to be known as a wonder drug for many diseases, mainly VD. But gradually penicillin in its natural form became useless. Scientists will tell you that the bacterium—which replicates faster than a chinchilla in a Cialis factory—eventually developed a strain of itself that was resistant to naturally formed penicillin, and that the process of Natural Selection caused this resistant strain to propagate in nature. This is an outright lie, which I will decimate momentarily.

      If we look at bacteria that grow resistant to antibiotics, insects that grow resistant to DDT, or even HIV that grows resistant to antiviral drugs, we see a fascinating correlation between “Natural Selection” and “resistance.” But what are we really seeing here? I submit that they’re not changing their genetic makeup, they’re changing their minds. In short, they’re getting smarter. If I go to your house and you feed me a shit sandwich two days in a row, I’m having lunch at McDonald’s on the third day. It’s that simple. Don’t let the scientists, with their big phallic bacterial names, tell you anything different. They’re not as smart as they pretend to be, no matter how much they try to demean so-called lower life forms.

One other example of Natural Selection should just about put this puppy to bed. Scientists have pointed to “artificial selection” to show that humans, by providing their own specific set of selective forces, can mimic the forces of nature. We see this over and over again in the actions of “breeders,” who purportedly have wrought immense changes in plants and animals. We can look to the various breeds of dogs as an example, where claims are made that all dog species originated from one common source: the ancestral wolf. From this ferocious beast we are expected to believe that a diverse assortment of species was created by man himself—such four-legged brutes as the Chihuahua, the dachshund, the poodle, and the bulldog—all of which have been with us since time immemorial. This breeding “myth” appears to be a form of propaganda, possibly put forth by anti–Intelligent Design campaigners, although I’ll save any conversation about Intelligent Design for a later chapter. How can we believe such claims about “man’s best friend” when it is obvious to the common observer that every breed has been put on this planet to serve a purpose. I, for one, would point to the FSM as the creator of dogs, although there is valid evidence that God (if he is ever proven to exist) might have had a hand in their creation. After all, aren’t Alsatians meant to provide us with protection, maybe even from their own “forefathers,” the wolf?⁵ Weren’t poodles and Chihuahuas put on this earth to make us feel better about ourselves? There can be little doubt that