Intelligent Design It Yourself

2006 was really the year of digital rhetoric, in which highly portable text, image, audio, or video files were rapidly disseminated to the public at large through distributed computer networks, so that that computer-generated artifacts often reached unintended audiences and were used for unintended rhetorical purposes.

Apparently what is true of politics is also true of the sciences. At a Christmas party tonight, I had an interesting conversation with Professor Mark Morris of UCLA, who expressed dismay that a digital photograph he took of a nebula at the center of our galaxy ended up used as evidence of the intentionality of the creator on an intelligent design blog.

It's interesting to see how this intelligent design blog uses YouTube, Flash animation contests, and other common gimmicks of participatory online culture.