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Author | Topic: EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed - Science Under Attack | |||||||||||||||||||
bluegenes Member (Idle past 2507 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Taz writes: Percy writes: Obviously not satire, don't know why you're even considering the possibility. Because there's still a part of me that believes noone is that stupid... at least not any adult anyway. It's definitely not satire, Taz, but you're on the right track when you mention people being stupid. The film will certainly backfire against the I.D. people. Here's how the (Jewish) Anti-Defamation League reacted to a previous (2006) attempt to blame The ToE for the holocaust:
quote: Page not Found | ADL The choice of a Jewish presenter for the film may not be a coincidence, as the above comment was made about a documentary by Christian "supremacists" (people who openly want to turn the U.S. into a Christian theocracy). The Discovery Institute has at least one prominent Christian supremacist donor/supporter, and I wonder if Ben Stein really understands the minefield he's walking into. He clearly doesn't understand the science, for one thing, and he may be politically naive as well.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2507 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
randman writes: It's a statement of fact. Eugenics and so Darwinism played heavily in their reasoning. Is it a natural outgrowth of Darwinism? Eugenics, under different names, is ancient. European aristocrats and royalty used to give it names like "breeding". When humans first noticed that characteristics could be hereditary, we'll never know, but I'd guess it was long before they invented things like the wheel and written language, and before they even started breeding animals. Now there's a thought for you, Randman. Eugenics is artificial selection, not "natural selection", isn't it? I don't think you're so ignorant as to think that artificial selection, both of animals and humans, dates from the nineteenth century. Here, in England, people who regarded themselves as having "blue blood" would go to great lengths to stop their children marrying people of "lowly stock". Stock, as in animal stock. The connection between animal breeding and attempts at directed human breeding is ancient, and shows in the language used. Artificial selection is an ancient idea. Darwin's observation that nature also selects was partially inspired by observation of artificial selection, not the other way around.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2507 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
molbiogirl writes: Mein Kampf makes no mention of Darwin, nor of the ToE. True. I once searched the text for both "Darwin" and "God". Darwin, zero. God, so many, I got bored looking at the contexts. Here's something (not from Mein Kamf) that you might find interesting.
quote: Fundies say the darndest things.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2507 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
randman writes: Are people part of the natural world or not? Certainly, in the broad sense, but natural, like many words, has more than one use. So, it's used to describe things that aren't man made (natural lake/artificial lake etc) and the natural/artificial selection definitions come from that tradition.
Artificial seems somewhat out of place as you use it, at least from an evolutionary perspective. Man-made selection is still natural selection as man is part of the environment. Again, that illustrates the deficiency of language. I agree that in the broad sense of the word, that it's natural for us to send rockets to the moon, and to do anything that we do. It's worth noting that the English language evolved at a time when it was standard for our ancestors to perceive themselves as, to some extent at least, separate from other life forms, and special in the eyes of God. You've made a good point (about language, at least) and it's an interesting one, coming from an I.D. supporter. For example, when I.D. people point to human designs as examples of intelligent design, they are pointing to things that are made by biological creatures. Making the comparison of a bacterial flagellum to an outboard motor is making an interesting note of the similarity of two things produced by nature (in the broad sense) but not in the narrow sense of the word nature. I.D. could perhaps be summed up by describing it as an attempt to prove that man is not part of nature by assuming that he's not.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2507 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Here's William Dembski commenting on "Expelled", which he seems to see as exposing the scientific establishment's attempts to keep God out of science academia, rather than some kind of unknown intelligent designer or designers whose existence can only be inferred from his or their designs.
So, he has obviously deserted the I.D. camp and become a creationist. http://www.bpnews.net/BPFirstPerson.asp?ID=27872
quote: Widespread? Livelihoods? Should we be sending food parcels? Reputations? I can't think of any creationist scientists I'd ever heard of for their work before they came out as creationists. Seems like a quick road to fame and fortune, if anything.
quote: Ah, God. A useful new three letter abbreviation for "Intelligent Designer", I suppose.
quote: Certainly, Bill. And how many scientific theories in the entire history of science can you think of that have been subject to more scrutiny than the Theory of Evolution? None, if you're honest.
quote: But Bill was talking about God, above. He needs to learn the difference between "scientific scrutiny", and religious attack.
quote: "Unwashed" is an interesting way of saying "ignorant". But the bit I like is about young people being encouraged to take up careers in science. Bill should beware. There are countries in which young people know more about science than in America, and in each and every one of them, there is a higher acceptance of evolutionary theory, and lower levels of religiosity than in the U.S.
quote: And people who think that evidence is important in science will be burned at the stake. Edited by bluegenes, : title added. Edited by bluegenes, : typo Edited by bluegenes, : typos
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2507 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
My excuses for replying to my own post, but in post 115, I quoted the ADL saying this about a previous attempt to exploit the deaths of Jews under the Nazis by creationists in the modern culture wars:
quote: From this press release: Page not Found | ADL I was guessing that they would come up with a similar condemnation of the "Expelled" film, and sure enough, they have. Press release here: Page not Found | ADL
quote: Ben Stein, meanwhile, is busy digging himself into an even deeper hole:
quote: Read more here Without realising it, Stein is giving plenty of ammunition to the mainstream scientists who claim that I.D. is anti-science. When the more thoughtful sector of the U.S. public read things like this, it'll occur to them that it would hardly be surprising if science departments were expelling people if they're part of a "science kills" religious movement! I think that we'll see some I.D. people disassociating themselves from some aspects of the film.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2507 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Taz writes: The thing that I don't understand is that the ID movement have been trying very hard to not associate themselves (publically at least) to christianity. Wouldn't Stein's obvious bias for the christian god on public television undermine all of this effort? Most seem to have given up that pretense, Taz, which was why I was laughing about Dembski using the word "God" as a three letter abbreviation for "intelligent designer" in his review of the film I linked to a few posts back (post 180). Are you sure that Stein said "Christian God"? Is he a convert?
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2507 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Taz writes: He didn't say "christian god" but he implied it. Odd implication if he's a believer in Judaism, which was what I was getting at.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2507 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Taz writes: Uh, if you didn't know it's the same god. Not really. Christ is God for Christians, but certainly not for Jews. A God who comes to earth as his own son and a God who doesn't cannot be one and the same. When there's a split in religion, like the split of Christianity from Judaism, a new God is automatically created. Same with the split of Islam from Christianity. Old earth Christians and YECs also believe in different Gods who created different universes in different ways. There are many "true" Gods of Abraham! Theists aren't people who all believe in the same God who actually exists. They believe in lots of different human inventions. But this is O.T. To relate it to the topic, it is because of these two different Gods and religions that two groups of people in central Europe were kept separate from each other for 1.5 millennia, and there were sometimes serious attacks and slaughters of followers of the minority religion, as during the crusades. If Ben Stein and the makers of "Expelled" really wanted to understand the holocaust, they would need to go into this history, and examine the role of religion. Pretending that science is a killer responsible for the symptoms of religious division will not alter the historical realities. After the war, religious people, both Christian and Jewish, tried to downplay the role of religion in the rise of the Nazis. But the Nazis were elected by an overwhelmingly Christian electorate, and a look at Hitler's speeches and writing shows the ancient religious prejudices that he was appealing to. The irony is that conservative Christians of the time were behind the Nazis and their pseudoscience, and it is conservative Christians who are the force behind the I.D. movement and their pseudoscience, as well as the film "Expelled", and its pathetic attempt to point the finger at real science as being the killer. This is one reason why the film is likely to backfire badly on the I.D. movement.
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bluegenes Member (Idle past 2507 days) Posts: 3119 From: U.K. Joined: |
Percy writes: Is this the interview... No, that's the one I linked to an extract from in post 183 on the Anti-defamation League's statement, and Rrhain linked to later on. It's a good one, though, and contains great lines if you ever have another "is I.D. science court case." Scientists can hardly be blamed for "expelling" people who are part of a "science kills" religious cult, can they. The film will backfire, inevitably. I don't know if most Americans are aware of Hitler's many creationist Christian anti-Jewish quotes, but if the film is an unlikely success, they can easily be made aware of them.
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