Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The New York Times picked up the story about PZ being denied entry to a screening of Expelled while Richard Dawkins was allowed in. It contains easily demonstrable lies like this one:
But Walt Ruloff, a partner in Premise Media, the film's producer, said the screening was one of a series the producers have organized for the film, which opens April 18, in hopes of building favorable word-of-mouth among people likely to be sympathetic to its message. People like Dr. Myers and Dr. Dawkins would not have been invited, he said.
Same excuse they used when they pulled PZ out of line, saying he wasn't invited and he had no ticket. Here's why this is obviously a lie: go to their RSVP system for the screenings of expelled. This is an open invitation to the public, not private invitations sent out, and if you RSVP you'll get an email that clearly says "YOUR NAME WILL BE ON A LIST AT THE DOOR. NO TICKET IS NEEDED."
So their two excuses for keeping him out of the screening are:
1. He wasn't invited to an event that the entire public was invited to attend. And,
2. He didn't have a ticket to an event for which tickets were not issued.
And this is on top of the major lie they told about the origin of the film, which Kristine asked about during the Q & A session. They told those they interviewed that the movie was a balanced look at the evolution/ID controversy and it was going to be called Crossroads. But they registered the websites for Expelled in January 2007 and the interviews took place in April 2007. Guess what? No websites for Crossroads were ever purchased. Yet another blatant lie.
So keeping in mind that they are lying through their teeth with their excuses for their blatantly hypocritical behavior, read this passage and see how credible it looks:
Mr. Mathis said in an interview that he had confronted Dr. Dawkins in the question and answer period after the screening and that Dr. Dawkins withered. "These people who own the academic establishment and who have great friends in the media -- they are not accustomed to having a level, open playing field," Mr. Mathis said. "I watched a man who has been a large figure, an imposing figure, I watched this man shrink in front of my eyes."
Monty Python and the Holy Grill comes to mind, with Mathis as the Black Knight - 'It's just a flesh wound." I'm not going, but I RSVPd as Alfred Wallace from the Association of Dead Naturalists (Grand Poobah, of course).
Comments
Posted by: Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD | March 24, 2008 9:41 AM
My understanding was that "Crossroads" wasn't even specifically about evolution/ID, but rather about "the intersection of religion and science" - which sounds even more innocuous.
Posted by: Eric | March 24, 2008 10:39 AM
Good thing I'd swallowed my coffee. "Presume" is exactly the right word, though, the base of "presumptuous." Merriam-Webster sez "presume: to suppose to be true without proof" -- just like ID.
Posted by: Pieter B | March 24, 2008 11:05 AM
Mathis has now admitted he specifically targeted Myers because he wants to make him pay to see the movie and he's unhappy with his "untruthful blogging" about "Expelled" (no specifics, of course).
Posted by: Jim Lippard | March 24, 2008 11:25 AM
Gee, for some reason I have a hard time believing this statement. Something about it just doesn't seem quite right.
Posted by: Gretchen | March 24, 2008 11:37 AM
There's a report in the JREF thread that if you use the Google cache version, you still can make reservations for the future dates.
Posted by: blf | March 24, 2008 11:58 AM
I have no respect whatsoever for the producers of Expelled, and do not support the Intelligent Design movement. However, I'm honestly getting a little weary of the "they never purchased web space for Crossroads line." That (a) proves nothing and (b) is disingenuous. It proves nothing because, if Mathis is telling the truth about Crossroads being a "working title" or "code name" for the project while it was in production, you wouldn't expect to find a domain name registered for the working title or code name of a film. Here in the greater Los Angeles area, we are covered in little yellow signs that point film crews to various filming locations, but we wouldn't run out and plug the code names from the signs into Google to try to find a web site with that name. The criticism is also a little disingenuous because, as PZ documented, Rampant Films did indeed have a blurb about Crossroads on its own web site. In hindsight, the presentation does appear to have been deceptive, and if you go to Rampant Films now, all you get is a trailer for Expelled. I'm not suggesting that Mathis and crew have acted honorably in any way, shape, form, or state of matter, but to say that Crossroads had no web presence before it was revealed as a veil for Expelled doesn't fit the facts.
Posted by: Christopher Heard | March 24, 2008 12:23 PM
I think the point is, Christopher, that the Expelled domain names were purchased months before the interviews took place. Clearly and evidently "Expelled the Movie" had already been decided. Crossroads was a ruse pure and simple.
But, it's not just the title of the movie that was deceptive, rather the intent of the film. Crossroads was presented as a completely different project than the intended film, Expelled.
Posted by: Doc Bill | March 24, 2008 12:34 PM
The old RSVP version is still Google-cached - and the RSVP link still works from the cached page. Someone appears to be attempting to edit the recent past. Those interested in history might consider obtaining screenshots...
Posted by: Idlethought | March 24, 2008 12:48 PM
Christopher, I checked this myself. They registered six "expelledthemovie" domains at the beginning of March (.com, .org, .biz, .info, .net, .us) *and* even added "expelledmovie.com" just four weeks later. All of this was weeks, if not months before they completed the interviews, and even before they had sent out their letters requesting the interviews. There is no such activity for any other movie title (and Mathis is certainly welcome to tell us all the other domain names they registered before they settled on Expelled, it's easy to check the registration dates once we have the names.)
It shows, at the very least, that they had a pretty good idea as to the main thrust of the documentary before they started interviewing anybody, and therefore the innocuous working title was certainly a deception at best and an outright lie at worst.
There really isn't much doubt on this issue, and it certainly confirms they are lying when they claim that they only decided to change the thrust of the movie once they had "uncovered the bias against scientists who support ID".
Posted by: tacitus | March 24, 2008 1:32 PM
Mathis has admitted to friends that he deliberately had PZ pulled out of the line by a cop and expelled from the theater out of pure spite. He wanted to "punish" him -- and maybe give a science professor "a taste of his own medicine." What backfired badly was not just the fact that Richard Dawkins was there (unexpectedly, contra what he says), but that PZ Myers did not go off abashed and ashamed into the night, licking his wounds and feeling both sorry for himself and indignant at how he was treated.
No, as anyone who knows him from his blog would have guessed, he thought it was HILARIOUS. It was the funniest, most ironic thing that could have happened, and he ran right to an Apple store in the mall to write a blog entry. That Richard Dawkins got in was even more icing on the cake. Wonderful! He couldn't stop laughing. And the other "evilutionists" couldn't stop laughing either. It became the most amazing joke on the creationists, the movie, and, of course, the producer himself. Pwned!
Mathis really didn't expect that, I bet. He thought it would "sting." He didn't think PZ -- and everyone else -- would find it funny. He didn't expect unholy glee.
He should have. That's the best kind of glee there is.
Posted by: Sastra | March 24, 2008 2:01 PM
I agree, there's something very fishy about that statement. Granted, I don't know Richard Dawkins personally, but I've read enough of his writing, read about him, and seen him on television enough to know that he's not the type to "shrink" in front of anyone, much less the creationist crowd who would have been present there.
Posted by: mathyoo | March 24, 2008 2:19 PM
The "level, open playing field" in this case being a Q & A session where Mathis controls the floor and attended by an audience recruited to be sympathetic towards the film.
Posted by: DaveL | March 24, 2008 3:07 PM
I read several different accounts of the Q & A, and if I had to make a guess it would be that somewhere in his complaints Richard Dawkins made some small error or two which the producer denied, upon which Dawkins politely apologized and corrected himself. I've been to several of his talks, and seen him do this a few times when challenged. He does try to come off as scrupulously fair, and is very keen on demonstrating the "self-corrective nature of science." In that venue in particular, he would not want to come off as "arrogant," so would be quick to say pardon on some minor point.
While this ability to concede graciously when mistaken gains him extra brownie points with most of his usual audiences, I'm willing to bet it would be interpreted as the aformentioned "crumbling" by this one. He's been set up as such a monster that any attempt to mollify his image is more likely to be seen as shrinking beneath the sword of Justice and Retribution.
Posted by: Sastra | March 24, 2008 3:56 PM
Why am I not surprised by any of this?
Creationists are as capable of playing a good-'ol-boys-club mentality as much as anyone else?
Posted by: CHV | March 24, 2008 4:04 PM
"Monty Python and the Holy Grill comes to mind..."
Is this anything like "Monty Python and the Holy GRAIL?". Though, the Holy Grill sounds freakin' awesome. I like my hotdogs blessed before I eat them.
And, "they are not accustomed to having a level, open playing field...". Dover, anyone?
Posted by: Deepsix | March 24, 2008 4:35 PM
There's another reason to disbelieve their story--can you imagine Dawkins shrinking from ANY sort of confrontation instigated by IDers?
Posted by: gary l. day | March 24, 2008 4:45 PM
I think tacitus' answer to Christopher Heard is precisely on point. They knew exactly what the film was going to be called and exactly what they were going to say when they interviewed people for it, yet they told them it was for a movie called "Crossroads" and it was a "balanced look" at how science and religion interacted. The fact that they registered the domains for "expelled" weeks before the interviews took place is a big piece of evidence for that.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | March 24, 2008 6:07 PM
At the time PZ was interviewed, I took a look at Rampant's website and found it rather shallow -- like the false fronts on the Universal back lot's Western Street. The site listed an office in Sherman Oaks, part of the San Fernando Valley, and an "office" phone number with a New Mexico area code. I drove by the "office" on my way home that evening and found an ordinary apartment house next to a small used-car lot. Details in the thread Christopher Heard linked above.
Posted by: Pieter B | March 24, 2008 7:17 PM
Sastra: "the funniest, most ironic thing that could have happened"
There are so many layers of irony. That PZ Meyers was expelled from "Expelled." That the movie's subtitle is "No Intelligence Allowed." That Meyers is [i]thanked[/i] in the credits.
Further irony is that none of this subterfuge should have been necessary. Dawkins and Meyers would have been delighted to be interviewed for "Expelled" as the movie turned out. It's actually a bit jarring, in the clip that I've seen, to see them calmly discussing science & religion in the "Crossroads" context while Ben Stein's narration and ominous music give it an "Expelled" spin.
Posted by: Grumpy | March 24, 2008 8:25 PM
DaveL - Good point. If you think about it, Mathis referring to that situation as a "level, open playing field" is very telling. Deception and spin seem to be second nature to him.
Posted by: Taz | March 24, 2008 11:40 PM
A "level open playing field" seems to mean "no pesky peer review."
Posted by: James Hanley | March 25, 2008 7:38 AM
"I watched a man who has been a large figure, an imposing figure, I watched this man shrink in front of my eyes."
Teh funny. See Richard Dawkins face down a Foucalt pendulum
Posted by: Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD | March 25, 2008 12:57 PM
Anyone who has seen his interview with Ted Haggard in The Root Of All Evil? knows that Dawkins isn't going to "shrink" before a two-bit fraud like Mathis.
Mathis is lying. Again.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | March 25, 2008 2:45 PM