Intelligent Falling

"According to the ECFR paper published simultaneously this week in the International Journal Of Science and the adolescent magazine God's Word For Teens!" and reported on in The Onion, scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are proposing a theory of Intelligent Falling as an adjunct to the theory of gravity, to be taught as part of Kansas public schools' science curriculum.

"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University.

"Anti-falling physicists have been theorizing for decades about the 'electromagnetic force,' the 'weak nuclear force,' the 'strong nuclear force,' and so-called 'force of gravity,'" Burdett said. "And they tilt their findings toward trying to unite them into one force. But readers of the Bible have already known for millennia what this one, unified force is: His name is Jesus."

Satire is an important cognitive tool in media theory to help reveal the hidden ground of assumptions that largely go unnoticed. If we extend the application of media theory beyond our conventional notions of media - the press, radio, television, cinema, the internet - it is possible to probe many diverse issues using the same sort of critical, analytic thinking that is often brought to bear on advertising or pop culture.

The underlying action is what I call the principle of media equivalency: If multiple distinct media share at least one common Laws of Media effect relative to a particular ground, they can be considered equivalent with respect to that ground, and the concomitant Laws of Media effects. The action of satire is that it highlights one medium with respect to another, revealing the hidden, common ground. In doing so, the observer can gain a new awareness of the totality of effects of the medium in question.

That being said, I actually think that the theory of Intelligent Falling might be more plausible than the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but only if the One who controls the Falling prevents me from getting pelted by FSM's meatballs. And there's that noodly appendage to worry about...

Update (18 Aug 2005): And here's the cartoon!

(Seen at Boingboing)
[Technorati tags: intelligent design | flying spaghetti monster | satire | media theory | media equivalence]