Intelligent Design Isn't.
"Intelligent Design Isn't" is one of our best sellers. I wish I could say I coined the phrase, but I'm sure thousands had uttered it before me. Months after designing the shirt I came across a New Yorker article by H. Allen Orr entitled nearly that,
"Why Intelligent Design Isn't."
My mother loved our themes, but not this one. She felt the one which smugly states
"Intelligent Design is Stupid" implied that I felt God was stupid. I bit my tongue lest I inform this woman who brought me into a very Catholic world that I had little time for gods these days. I stated that those who were trying to get the theory of Intelligent Design taught in schools were scientific dolts grasping at straws to bring God into the public classrooms of America.
While we high five each other as school boards, starting with
Dover, are struck down in their attempts to meddle with local curricula, hundreds of other cases are brought monthly, virtually strangling science education in America. A friend who teaches science in my hometown is forbidden to teach evolution. If you think we're winning this particular battle, guess again.
The first woman to buy this shirt was
Jennifer Miller, the Dover, Pennsylvania middle school science teacher at the center of the maelstrom. Look for her in the forthcoming book
"Into the Great Divide" by Matthew Chapman, great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin. Jennifer has volunteered the services of her fellow science teachers to proudly sport our attire at various science education functions.
In future photoshoots I want to show what our messages mean in the context of the history of this burg I call home. Ben Franklin's Grave. Independence and Carpenters Halls. The Liberty Bell.
Philadelphians are often guilty of treating this nation's birthplace with a smirk, cursing at the tourists we trip over daily. Never visiting these treasures unless we have family in from out of town.
Living in the middle of history central for five years gave me a rare appreciation. Walking my
dog through the various parks and buildings spread over a quadrant of Center City forced me to think daily about these amazing, crazy men who started this American Experiment. They were the most radical of souls, and they're spinning in their graves as the theocrats steer us back to the middle ages. Every American needs a kick in the ass tour cum Constitutional seminar of this city, replete with in-your-face
quotations about the founding fathers' fervent disdain for religion and the religious.
Want a nation under God? Go visit, or better yet, move to Iran. Afghanistan. Iraq.
We're raising a generation of children who shall, through the narrow mindedness of blind faith, become the least educated scientifically in the industrialized world. There's a war on science. This message fights back.
