Milestone, Monkeys

This is my 100th post. I used to hate writing 500 word essays in high school as homework assignments, the last 100 words usually contained lots of filler phrases like "Furthermore, in my not so humble opinion, I think that it is somewhat reasonable to believe that in certain circumstances the chance might exist that... Smurfette was capable of procreation... at least, in so far as she found any of her cobalt comrades sufficiently attractive." Now my problem is trying to find time to write and then trying to write something intelligible.

Today I'm writing about Intelligent Design, education and... the manipulation of the proletariat by evil, conservative overlords. Please keep in mind while reading this that I don't really fault anybody for beleiving what they do and that by "writing evil, conservative overlords" it's a jab at lefties and their equally emotional views. In fact I have that problem a lot, I try to be funny a lot of the time just to amuse myself and my words are sometimes misinterpreted. People who try to promote the teaching of Creationism in public education do so because they believe in God and think they are doing a good thing. Commendable if not misguided.

Before I get into some possibly unused arguments against creationism there are some themes that people seem to grab on to when trying to manipulate public perception. Labelling is a big one. Creationists weren't getting very far with curriculum because it's pretty easy to see a link between State - > Public Education -> Curriculum -> Creationism -> Church. So what did they do? From a Wired Article:
"The institute doesn't need to impress Woese or his peers; it can simply co-opt the vocabulary of science - "academic freedom," "scientific objectivity," "teach the controversy" - and redirect it to a public trying to reconcile what appear to be two contradictory scientific views." The problem isn't ignorance, who really has the time to learn about all of the issues these days anyway? Who is going to object to the supposedly uber patriotic Patriot Act? I bet McCarthy wouldn't. The problem is that school boards and representatives in general aren't doing their homework. What is the moral of the story? I guess it's that "know your enemy" and "if you can't beat them, join them" have a lot in common. Here's a new quote "If you can't beat them, understand them then misuse their language to confuse the hell out of everybody at which point you're more able to gain power in a democracy."

I keep getting back to some big picture themes that come from the basic understanding I have of chaos theory. "While most of the motion types mentioned above give rise to very simple attractors, such as points and circle-like curves called limit cycles, chaotic motion gives rise to what are known as strange attractors, attractors that can have great detail and complexity"So it just hit me that I can look at politics, media etc. through the lens that the chaotic motion is perception and society is a chaotic system. So what can I infer about behavior from that perspective? Well I think that these big picture themes I keep hoping exist do exist in the form of strange attractors rooted in human instincts that evolved to give us a better chance at procreating, not to aid our search for some kind of truth. I'm assuming that the search for truth doesn't have anything to do with the ability to procreate. Based on my recent adventures in local bars I think that's a reasonable assumption.

Our brains are now big enough that we're able to understand inequity. Inequity according to a lot of people I agree with is the cause of war, not religion. Inequity is also a problem because when I go to the bar with my tall good looking friend I know he's going to get "the girl" That is of couse a double standard, how can I be pissed of at the system when I'm equally shallow when it comes to women? The whole game is rigged. These strange attractors, things like high cheek bones and height are in place because of natural selection. The cold, heartless laws of evolution have created a system of inequity if you assume that there is more to life than health. We're like 2nd generation slaves that finally recognize that there is more to life than the salt mines but we're still unable to break free. Disaffected single people have a saying something like "You can take the player out of the game but you can't take the game out of the player".