Public School Curriculum Content :: Education Curriculum Teaching Essays Papers

Public School Curriculum Content In this era of progressive thinking and open mindedness, it was only a matter of time before society tried to change our school system for the better. The long-standing theories of Charles Darwin on evolution are finally being contested. Intelligent Design has emerged as the leading opposition to Darwin's blasphemy, but another equally valid theory has recently made some noise in the world of evolution. The Flying Spaghetti Monster's Intelligent Design, also known as FSMism, has recently built up quite a following. These two theories are pushing very hard to one day be in our high school curriculum. Are ID and FSMism both worthy of being taught in our schools or is one more scientifically valid? Intelligent Design, or ID, states that there are certain aspects in nature that show individual signs of intelligence that can not be accounted for, or that are too complex for our understanding. Therefore, an "Intelligent Designer" must have deliberately created everything in nature that shows this unaccountable sign of intelligence. Followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, also called Pastafarians, follow the same criteria as ID proponents. On top of those ideals, Brian D Rabern, a Pastafarian and a member of the Department of Philosophy at UC Santa Barbara, adds another perspective. "Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence. The universe began to exist. Therefore, the universe has a cause for existence. Since no scientific explanation can provide a causal account of the origin of the universe, the cause must be supernatural, i.e. a god. Therefore, a god exists. Gods create humans in their own image. The brains of humans resemble a bowl of spaghetti. Thus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the one true god." This statement brings up the most blaring difference between ID and FSMism, the fact that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is defined and ID has no particular designer. The fact that ID has no specified designer has both positive and negative effects on the theory. On the one hand, having no higher power defined brings the separation of Church and State out of the equation. Conversely, since no higher power is mentioned, one would have to come to the conclusion that there is not just one higher power. ID states that an "Intelligent Designer" must have created anything that shows an unexplainable intelligence. This means that the "Intelligent Designer" would have to have unexplainable intelligence of his own which would lead to the conclusion that their must be another designer that designed him.