Atom tha Immortal is down with G-d

It’s raining today, I’ve got a cold, I’m struggling with a text revision and the house reeks of fresh paint. On the positive side, Truth & Soul Records are giving away a free catalogue sampler. Once the emusic site is operational again, you can download 12 soulful tracks for free.

What’s more, with the launch of Laid Back Radio, Laid-Back.be captures the media life Zeitgeist. Easy to install, run and use, this player makes sense. For anyone with an interest in urban music, this is the way forward.

In other news, Barbara Forrester’s lecture yesterday introduced me to the music of Atom tha Immortal,  the world’s first (and only?) Intelligent Design rapper. Witness the lyrical fitness in Achilles.

Apocalyptic G-d presence/
Feeling the fire of G-d’s essence/
You need Rosetta Stones to unlock my poem’s message/
Born in a body of sand since early dawn/
Adam spawned genetic code of early on/

For your information, “early dawn” is some 7,000 years ago, when “G-d” created the earth, and man in his image. I have always had a soft spot for politically self-conscious hip hop, but not for conservative, blinded-by-religion pseudo-science. In what follows, Atom attempts to “leave Darwinian fish bleeding”.

Wounds of Darwinian Theory will never heal/
Once the population finds Intelligent Design/
Enzymes hold the signs of a Divine Mind/
Darwinian speculation is useless/
To explain emergence/
Of cellular machines below the surface/
Seeing Specified Complexity points to a purpose/
Of a system of integrated parts/
Excluding chance as part/
Of how it could ever start/
So/
I speak with truth and in reason/
But whether you believe or not/
We leave Darwinian fish bleeding/

This is beyond unintentional comedy, this is a travesty. Speaking of travesties, check out this Discovery Institute promo video. It features all of the ‘leading men’ of this anti-evolution think tank. Fascinating, professional propaganda.

When Barbara Forrest comes to town

When done well, critical discourse studies offer biting critiques of power in society, showing how dominant discourses, i.e. taken-for-granted or commonsensical assumptions, world views and ideologies, shape and are shaped by text and talk.

The Wedge Strategy is an interesting and topical example of an alternative discourse (Intelligent Design) seeking to challenge *the* dominant one (Evolution). Published in 1999, the Wedge Strategy is a Discovery Institute (DI) manifesto which aims

To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God (p4)

“Materialistic explanations” refer to evolutionary science, which Intelligent Design disqualifies as “atheistic”. The Wikipedia entry on the Wedge Strategy is well worth reading. In The Wedge at Work, Barbara Forrest, a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Lousiana University,

does not analyze the philosophical and scientific arguments (such as they are) of DI’s intelligent design proponents. Others are doing that quite capably; rather, the present study analyzes the nature of the wedge strategy, providing a framework from which to move at any point into the philosophical and scientific analyses.

Forrest’s analysis shows how the DI attempts to

• “cultivate a facade of academic legitimacy”;
• “influence college students, too many of whom are ignorant of genuine science, thus recruiting them into the wedge movement”;
• “cultivate the support of university administrators and financial donors”;
• “acquire physical bases of operation, with access to all the advantages this brings”
• “exploit their presence in higher education, using their credentials to “snow” the public”.

On Tuesday, March 3, Barbara Forrest will give a talk about her research at Ghent University, entitled ”Inside Creationism’s Trojan Horse: A Closer Look at Intelligent Design” (auditorium C, Blandijnberg 2, Ghent, 8pm). Attendance is free and highly recommended.