EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed - Science Under Attack

So you would disagree with the reviews that characterized it as poorly made and tiresome?--Percy

I demand equal time for pumpkin patch theory! --Percy

Is Ben Stein creationism's Tom Cruise? And is his movie just an attempt to create his own intellectual holocaust by substituting scientists bent on censorship and persecution for greedy money-lending Jews? (Oh the irony!)Certainly Ben Stein has revealed himself to be a showman first and a thinker last. Though everyone has probably heard this already from Stein's own mouth, I'm providing this quote from his O'Reilly interview anyway just to set the stage: What an incredible combination of chutzpah and ignorance! One would think that someone as brilliant as Stein would take the trouble to educate himself, so maybe he's not so brilliant. Maybe he's just good at what he does, which is convincingly delivering any message he's given whether true or not, and I offer as evidence his role in the Nixon administration.Normally I wouldn't give in to the temptation of character assassination, but there's some quality in Ben Stein's character that needs explaining, because otherwise his central role in this movie makes no sense. So looking into the Stein/Nixon connection I found that Wikipedia says he is a Nixon apologist. About Deep Throat he wrote in The American Spectator: Wow! Here Stein is doing it once again, accusing people he doesn't like of the equivalent of genocide. Apparently Ben Stein believes that Mark Felt, Bob Woodward and Ben Bradlee (then publisher of The Washington Post), evolutionary scientists and Nazis all have a lot in common!Right now it seems possible that this movie is just going to disappear without making too many ripples, but it's too early to be sure. We'll just have to hope. As for Ben Stein, I find him a sincere and lovable character, but apparently that's just acting, so from now on I will boycott all things Ben Stein.--Percy

Is this the interview you were referring to: Paul Crouch Jr. interviews Expelled's Ben Stein. Here's an excerpt: Well, I guess we're all thankful it's just an opinion!AbE: Just finished listening to it, this can't be it because he barely mentions aliens. Oh, well.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Addendum.

Scientific American's site has an update on the Ono injunction. A federal judge overturned the injunction against the film's use of John Lennon's Imagine, and Ono plans to appeal: Imagine there's no evolution: Yoko says oh no to Expelled--Percy

Had a little free time tonight before the Celtics game, so since Netflix is making Expelled available over the web for free I decided to watch it. I was so shocked in just the first 15 seconds that I decided to write this as I watched.The film opens in black and white with kids playing on the street - in World War II Germany. Cut to a clip of Hitler with a couple army offices. Cut to a newsreel style map of Europe. Cut to barb wire being strung. Cut to the Berlin Wall being built. Cut to a marching armed Guard. Cut to concerned people looking on. Cut to the wall again. Cut to patrolling armed gaurds. Cut to kids playing soccer in the street. Cut to film's title, still all black and white.Film switches to color. Short clips of anti-ID comments by scientists, including Dawkins. Ben Stein is introduced to an applauding audience. He gives a speech on freedom. He claims we're losing it at our most important institutions. He starts with Richard Sternberg. I'm going to stop typing now, this is the part of the film we've already heard so much about.Whoa! Picking up again, because after Sternberg says that some people had visible physical reactions to the publishing of the Meyer paper, there's a quick cut to Krushchev banging his fists at the United Nations. As Sternberg continues to speak there are several quick cuts (all cuts are B&W) to a man being bullied by a gang, then punched in the face.Whoa again! While interviewing Dr. Caroline Crocker there are a couple quick cuts to a guillotine, blade raised, then dropped. As she talks there's another cut to silhouettes of a priest leading a man being dragged forward by guards, presumably to his death.Now an interveiw with Dr. Robert J. Marks. While describing his shock at his website being shut down there's a cut to a scene from Planet of the Apes where Kirk Douglas is in a cage being sprayed by a firehose.Okay, I'm going to stop writing again. Evidently this is the way the whole film is going to go, with frequent cuts to black and white clips showing Nazis, hooliganism, executions, gunfights, etc.Okay, it's about 10 minutes later, I'm maybe 22 minutes into the film, the short B&W clips have stopped. Ben Stein has moved on talking to the Discovery Institute, and now he's at Biola University talking to a Dr. Nelson, and he actually gave the proper definition of evolution. He also gave an excellent definition of ID, the search for patterns in nature that could only be the result of intelligence.He's talking to Dembski now, who actually states a very moderate position, saying just as we discovered that Newtonian physics was not the whole picture in physics, now we're finding that evolution is not whole picture concerning changing life.Now he's talking to Stephen Meyer of Discovery Institute, who says that the issue will be settled not by the great numbers of evolutionists but by evidence and arguments.Now it's Jonathon Wells (Icons of Evolution), who claims the evidence for evolution is being distorted to fit a theory it really doesn't fit.And on to David Berlinski in Paris, who says that Darwinian theory is like looking into a room full of smoke, unintelligible.Back to Dawkins, who only had a short clip earlier. I'd heard the complaints about the dark lighting used with the Dawkins segment, usually accompanied by comments that the film should have been more professionally done, but I think the dark lighting is on purpose. So far the film seems technically very professional, and the dark lighting makes Dawkins and his clipped way of speaking seem far more sinister. Paraphrasing Dawkins, "The evidence for evolution is so overwhelming that only the ignorant or the stupid wouldn't accept it." Yeah, Dawkins, that's who I want for my spokesperson! Well, I'm 31 minutes into the film, I'm going to go watch the Celtic game now. If I have time sometime down the road I'll watch more of the film. I'd say that now that the heavy handedness of the first 10 minutes is over that the quality as measured by the traditional standards of the documentarian art has picked up quite a bit. The point of view is still clear, it's obviously not a balanced film, but this middle portion is much better than the opening.--Percy

No, I haven't gotten back to it yet, don't know if I will, at least not soon. Going into the holiday season my free time is getting more and more sparse.I agree with your portrayal of the film as trying to recruit the already faithful to the creationist cause.--Percy

Even before seeing Mod's post that included specific information about ICR's finances, it was obvious that ICR's claim to having a budget of only $650,000/year could not be accurate. The page you took the information from was written by Henry Morris, now deceased. That particular paragraph could only be true if written 20 or more years ago.--Percy

I wonder how many people here would be willing to step up to the plate to write one letter to your local newspaper, spaced out at the rate of one per week to keep things going.I'll write one.Whoever else is willing to write a letter, post a note here and I'll put together a schedule.--Percy

What were those ill effects?--Percy

Hi Crawler30,This is from the Forum Guidelines:

5. Bare links with no supporting discussion should be avoided. Make the argument in your own words and use links as supporting references.

Can you describe for us how Sternberg was discriminated against?--Percy

Another Sternberg thread is Congress stepping in to stop witchunt of IDers.--Percy

Hi Slevesque,I understand your concern that discussing the nature of science would draw the thread off-topic, but I don't think it is too difficult to find some common ground, so let me just briefly say a couple things I think we could agree on.We probably agree that science is based upon observations. We can only conduct science on phenomena we can observe (using technology, if necessary).So if a phenomenon can be observed, then it is amenable to scientific study. Scientists think of observable phenomena as part of the natural world in which we live. But what about supernatural phenomena?Well, we can't know about any supernatural phenomenon that can't be observed. Therefore we can only be aware of supernatural phenomena that can be observed. But when a phenomenon is observable, how does one tell whether it is supernatural or natural?The obvious answer is just to dispense with terms like supernatural and natural. If something can be observed then science can study it, and that's that.--Percy

Sternberg's professional reputation took such a severe beating that it very adversely affected his opportunities in his chosen area of research, but he didn't lose his job. How can you call this discrimination?Have you thought this through? If you screwed up in your current job so badly that your opportunities for advancement dried up, but you were able to keep your job, would you describe yourself as discriminated against?I can understand disagreeing about whether Sternberg's actions were reprehensible, underhanded, unprofessional, and reflected poor judgment.And I can understand claiming that such characterizations are just a smokescreen for disagreeing with his stance on intelligent design.But I can't understand claiming discrimination.You know, I didn't make Deacon at my church after it got out that I was actually a Unitarian and only attended the church because of my wife. I feel discriminated against! --Percy

Sternberg suffered "ill effects" to a significantly less degree than most of the rest of us would had we screwed up as badly in our own jobs.You know, I suffered ill effects at the varsity level in college when I was denied a more prominent role after failing to display an appropriate level of athleticism and skill. Could I get the creationist community to take up my cause? Given their skill at this, it shouldn't be too difficult portraying me as a victim of unfair bias and discrimination. --Percy