Opinion

The Theory of Stupid Design

By Frank Fuller
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Download a .pdf file for printing.
Adobe Acrobat Reader required.
Click here to download a free copy.

October 6, 2005—The big evolution versus intelligent design trial has started, 80 years after the Scopes trial in Tennessee.

If you don't remember the Scopes trial, also popularly known as the Monkey Trial, John Scopes was found guilty in 1925 of teaching evolution in a Tennessee high school, in violation of the state's Butler Act, and was fined $100. This was a huge affair, probably as big a story as the Michael Jackson trial was this year. Celebrity lawyers Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryant came to Tennessee to handle the case—Darrow to defend Scopes and Bryant to prosecute him. It received worldwide press coverage, and it was so well known that it was subsequently made into a Broadway play and later into a fairly good movie starring Spencer Tracy and Frederic March.

All that attention might make you think we learned something, but here we are, 80 years later, still running into the same wall. And wouldn't that make people a little skeptical about something that calls itself "intelligent design?" How intelligent can a design be if it keeps you running into the same wall for 80 years? Not very, I think.

Luckily, however, there is a little known theory that will explain this urge to keep running into that same wall as well as all the other important things in our lives. It is called The Theory of Stupid Design.

What is The Theory Of Stupid Design? It states: "Stupid things happen increasingly often." Another, less precise way of saying this is: "No matter how stupid something may seem, just wait a couple days. Something more stupid will come along by then."

These days, with events changing and developing so quickly, many of us need help understanding the world. The Theory of Stupid Design is one of the best tools for this, because it cuts through all the baggage right to the heart of the matter. Following are a few basic questions many of us have had and how the Theory of Stupid Design resolves them.

How can I get a job like the one at FEMA where, even if I am fired, they keep paying me?

Only through a lifetime of hard work and dedication. If you didn't have the goal as a teenager to want to grow up and be completely indistinguishable from a dead tree and then spend years in pursuit of that goal, you can't do it. The Theory of Stupid Design emphasizes that these opportunities still exist, but only for those who are very focused, who start young, who have the drive to do all the hard work necessary to be about as useful as a dead tree, and then who get to know the right people.

Bill Frist said he had a blind trust. What exactly is a blind trust?

It's magic. It's a financial tool that creates money and keeps you honest at the same time. It eliminates greed. It makes its possessor compassionate and warm. It makes people trust you. It might even cure cancer. No one really knows. But it's there, magically making money for you so you can remain ethical and above reproach. Then one day you get to open it up and you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams. Oh, and honest, too.

William Bennett said the nation's crime rate would go down if we aborted all black babies. Is that true?

No. What would make a difference, though, is if we aborted all white male babies. That really would lower the nation's crime rate. That's because the nation's CEOs, as they age and start dying, would then have no one to pass their secret CEO lore to. This lore is the very ancient knowledge that tells how they screw everyone else except rich white men and their families and get away with it. These secrets are passed down orally, and if one generation of white men is not there to receive this lore, the CEO ways would be forgotten. Thus there would be much less crime rampant in the US.

Could I also become a judge by not answering any questions?

Only if you seem like a really nice guy. That's the main thing. It won't work if you're a nice gal or a so-so guy. You have to seem to be a really nice guy. Maybe even a really, really, really nice guy. That way, any criticism of you bounces off you and smears your critics. Since your critics know that is going to happen, they are scared off.

How do I get a lobbyist to take me to Scotland for a round of golf. And will they include some lessons and clubs for me, since I don't play golf?

Well, you have to be sitting on a piece of legislation someone really wants you to pass. Unfortunately, most of us don't have that underneath our butts.

Because it can answer so many other questions as well, this theory is one of the greatest discoveries of our age. But unfortunately, the Theory of Stupid Design also says that nobody will accept this theory. It will be rejected, and when my time comes, I will die in obscurity.

But I am consoled because I know that if it became popular and were taught in schools alongside evolutionary theory, that would mean it would be wrong. The Theory of Stupid Design, in other words, argues against its own acceptance! It clearly points out that a nice person wouldn't come up with such a mean and cynical theory of stupid design. And if you don't come across as nice on the talk shows when you are trying to sell your theory, well, no one's going to listen to you. If you're not nice, you probably won't even get on the talk shows.

So it's destined to end up in the waste bin of history. Eighty years from now, long after I'm gone, we'll again be in court arguing evolution and wanting to throw teachers in jail for teaching it. That same wall will still be there, and we'll still be running into it headfirst. We'll have learned nothing. If you are still around then, remember this: the Theory of Stupid Design predicted it first.

Frank Fuller is a freelance writer whose humor can be read at www.last-laugh.net.