Pirates cooled the earth, and there are fewer of them now.
The letter includes a chart of global average temperature against the estimated number of pirates since 1800, showing an inverse relationship, and concludes that the decline in piracy is the cause of global warming. It is the clearest demonstration of correlation mistaken for causation ever put in front of a school board.
The pirate graph is the most reproduced piece of Pastafarian material and the most misread. It plots global average temperature against an estimated pirate population since about 1800, shows the two moving in opposite directions, and concludes that the decline in piracy caused global warming. It is a joke about correlation, and it is also an accurate parody of a real rhetorical move, which is why statistics teachers use it. Everything else in the pirate material follows from it: the full pirate regalia said to be His preferred dress, the pirate genealogy in the Gospel, Talk Like a Pirate Day observed in September. Pastafarians are aware that the joke has now outrun the argument it was built to make, and the church's own materials lean on the pirates more than on the epistemology.
You may be interested to know that global warming, earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking numbers of Pirates since the 1800s.
Bobby Henderson, Open Letter to the Kansas School Board, 2005The sentence the pirate graph illustrates, and the most widely reproduced line in the letter.
The same ground, other faiths
claims that share this one's ideasSign in to open the first thread. Everything here is attributed.