Reply to Onion's Spoof

1. Physics is about absolute truth. Physicists are the closest thing to the high priests of science that we have. Laws of physics are therefore inviolable truths.
2. Fundamentalists value something else above physics. They are therefore: (a) ignorant (uneducated), (b) stupid (irrational), (c) doomed
3. The 2nd law of thermodynamics, e.g., entropy is an inviolable "law" of nature.
4. The Christian Coalition is Fundamentalist.
5. Kansas is a "backward" state, denying the validity of an established scientific theory.

Answers

1. Physicists have only the foggiest notion about truth. Ask one of them what quantum mechanics means, whether like Einstein said, it isn't just an incomplete view of the world. While you are at it, ask them if they read the article in Science that said a pulse of light was measured to travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.
2. Alternative value systems are possible. And indeed, a better one than the presently promulgated one is indeed likely. Since they are fundamental presuppositions, one cannot argue against another's value system, one can only show whether a particular value system is self-consistent or not. Therefore it is only the uneducated who do not know that they operate with a value system in place. It is only the irrational who insist that self-inconsistent value systems are best. And it is the propagators of self-inconsistent value systems that are doomed.
3. The second law of thermodynamics is much misunderstood. It is a statement about collections of many particles undergoing random perturbations. The infamous "ergodic theorem" or "H-theorem" attempts to claim that these laws of probability can be transmuted into laws of entropy. Counter-examples abound, including quantum mechanics. Modern expressions of this law prefer to call it "information theory". One counter-example will suffice: where does the entropy in hot gas go when it get sucked into a black hole?
4. The Christian Coalistion isn't Fundamentalist. It's Christian. Learn the difference.
5. Evolution (the real-life story) is not an established theory, nor did the school board say it wasn't. They only said the students were not required to study it for their exams. Nor is Kansas unique. The Kansas decision was already in place in Alabama almost a decade earlier. In fact, quite a few states have adopted similar language and attitude to the "theory of evolution", which as much a theory as the anthropic principle is a principle.