I'm a graduate student studying the molecular and biochemical evolution of HIV within patients and within populations. I also study epigenetic control of ERVs.
YAAAAAY!!!
The EXPELLED DVD is coming out soon!!
EXPELLED!
Starring, BEN STEIN!
Featuring, BEN STEIN!
"FOUR STARS! I Love This Film!"-- BEN STEIN!
heeeeeeeehehehehe!
BEN STEIN!!!! **JAZZHANDS**
Well, I encourage you all to go to EXPELLEDs website to vote in their poll:
"Do you think Darwin's theories are OUTDATED? Yes, No, Maybe"
For real! Go on over and vote-- but come back here when youre done. You see, Im going to prove to everyone (including James Randi!) I am psychic. No matter how many of you vote... No matter how many of you vote for Yes/No/Maybe... I know what the outcome of this poll will be:
YES: 50%NO: 25%
MAYBE: 25%
Then, if you hit 'refresh' the results will change to:
YES: 57%
NO: 14%
MAYBE: 29%
Am I psychic, or are the producers of EXPELLED lying sacks of shit who have rigged their own poll?
Comments
Abbie! It's not nice to say that the producers of EXPELLED are lying sacks of shit! Lying sacks of shit everywhere should be offended by that association!
My own psychic abilities are telling me that if anyone still really cared about EXPELLED anymore, the producers would say that the uniform poll results were caused by "a computer glitch" or "technical error" which has since been corrected. But, since no one actually cares, I doubt it will even come to that.
Posted by: SteveWH | October 20, 2008 7:52 PM
Hmmm....let's see how the Number ONE!!!! documentary of 2008 is doing so far....
1 Fahrenheit 9/11: $119,194,771
2 March of the Penguins: $77,437,223
3 Sicko: $24,540,079
4 An Inconvenient Truth: $24,146,161
5 Bowling for Columbine: $21,576,018
6 Madonna: Truth or Dare: $15,012,935
7 Winged Migration: $11,689,053
8 Super Size Me: $11,536,423
9 Religulous: $9,068,325
10 Mad Hot Ballroom: $8,117,961
11 Hoop Dreams: $7,830,611
12 Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed: $7,720,487
Didn't that Religulous film come out in '08? Oops....
Posted by: James F | October 20, 2008 8:06 PM
Aww, that's cute, make up the data as you go!
Posted by: Jared | October 20, 2008 8:10 PM
Religulous beat Expelled in just 16 days...
Religulous Versus Expelled
Posted by: Doubting Foo | October 20, 2008 9:01 PM
Abbie, I love you. Will you join me and my wife in a futuristic/progressive triad relationship?
How the hell do you notice this stuff?
Posted by: josh | October 20, 2008 9:02 PM
I must be psychic, too: as soon as I saw mention of the poll I knew the results would be fixed. I'm actually surprised they had NO as high as it is ...
Posted by: Yoo | October 20, 2008 9:07 PM
They are lying sacks of shit who have rigged their own poll.
Oh, sorry, was that rhetorical? :D
Looking at
view-source:http://www.expelledthemovie.com/poll.xml
in Google Chrome shows
[poll]
[question/]
[answer votes="4" barColor="#66CC33"]Yes[/answer]
[answer votes="1" barColor="#66CC33"]No[/answer]
[answer votes="2" barColor="#66CC33"]Maybe[/answer]
[/poll]
Posted by: Tophe | October 20, 2008 9:29 PM
This poll has been up for a while. I voted, lessee, three days ago? Four? Seems to me the margin was closer, and showing an increasing number of "No" votes.
I can confidently say that at the time I predicted that the poll results would be finessed by Steinophiles before you can say "anti-American militant atheist." 'Course, I can't prove it. Actually, I had mostly forgotten all about it till now. Thanks for the reminder.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | October 20, 2008 9:32 PM
Lessee ...
Pangenesis ... Yes.
Natural selection ... No.
Gradualism ... Maybe.
No matter what answer the producers rig the numbers to, they can't help but be partly right ... which is a great improvement on their batting average.
Posted by: John Pieret | October 20, 2008 9:42 PM
I wonder if they'll leave that poll up for a good long time, and I'm willing to say that those results will never change in the slightest.
What a bunch of dishonest pieces of worm shit. Really, I'd say it's pathetic, but these are malicious sons-of-bitches who have no conscience, no morals, and no integrity whatsoever.
Great catch, Abbie.
Luv n hugs n stuff!
Posted by: Capital Dan | October 20, 2008 10:04 PM
I didnt figure this out! The Coolest People on the Internet(TM) found it! They know everything. They see everything. Im just pulicizin it ;)
Posted by: ERV | October 20, 2008 10:20 PM
Oooh! You should seriously send it to James Randi! Wouldn't that be fun? ;-)
Posted by: Stacy S. | October 20, 2008 10:52 PM
... Or teh "Myth busters"! :-)
Posted by: Stacy S. | October 20, 2008 10:55 PM
"Do you think Darwin's theories are OUTDATED?"
Wow, that's a dumb question on the face of it. There's a whole lot Darwin didn't know at the time, lacking as he did perfect foresight and a time machine, but of course "Darwin's theories" is going to mean a different thing to the evolution crowd as it is to the creation/ID crowd, which will consider all evolutionary theories to be "Darwin's theories".
Gah, now I see they're starting to greenlight comments again! As if I need another hobby resumed :)
Posted by: Ritchie Annand | October 21, 2008 1:55 AM
I noticed this a little while ago. I think its an attempt to get anti-Creationists to buy the dvd just because its cover is so hilariously stupid. I doubt its an error.
Posted by: John | October 21, 2008 2:53 AM
Yep, I got exactly the same results. You know, we should assume as much from the get-go with these folks. We could always test your working hypothesis with a classic PZ Poll-Crash(TM). If his ranks of readers can't move it, it is fake.
Posted by: Inoculated Mind | October 21, 2008 3:31 AM
Wow. That is just pathetic. What else can you say? Utterly pathetic.
Posted by: Jonathan | October 21, 2008 3:50 AM
"I LOVE PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. BEST MOVIE EVER! FOUR STARS" - Ed Wood
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | October 21, 2008 7:22 AM
I was a bit dismayed when I saw ads for Expelled on BBC America, but then I remember that this was the same channel that aired ads for Kinoki footpads.
Posted by: J. J. Ramsey | October 21, 2008 9:04 AM
Just wrote my vote : still at 50-25-25...
Posted by: BdN | October 21, 2008 10:14 AM
Wow, that is disappointing. My opinion of Expelled was pretty low but frankly I didn't expect them to rig a poll that way (incidentally, confirmed Abbie's claim).
Although on the topic of massive ID/creationist failures I can't resist making a gratuitous plug for my latest blog entry wherein the Texas "teach the controversy" proponents say explicitly that they want taught the opinions of "creationists" (not even bothering saying ID):
http://religionsetspolitics.blogspot.com/2008/10/don-mcleroy-jenkins-epic-failure-by.html
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | October 21, 2008 10:37 AM
I like the one banner ad that takes you to an "ID answers" page:
http://www.intelligentdesignanswers.com
Interestingly they have a couple Dawkins books right up at top.
Posted by: karl | October 21, 2008 10:56 AM
I should point out that the link uses their amazon associates ID. If you do follow and then happen to buy something, remember they'll get some coin thrown their way. Nice to see they're not above making some money off a Dawkins book.
Posted by: karl | October 21, 2008 10:58 AM
Has it occured to anyone else that Ben Stein probably has the world's most fitting initials?
I have tried to watch Expelled, but the line-up of douchebags made it too unbearable. Ben Stein and his comrades are pissing in the fountain of knowledge. Appearently there is no limit to how much the creationists/IDiots are willing to lie and distort in order to brainwash people into believing that ID is even a candidate for explaining life. If these people are allowed to control American schools scientific literacy will plummet to a sad lowpoint.
As far as I could see no one on the ID-side in the documentary even understood the theory they want to overturn. Hardly suprising, seeing that not only are their religious beliefs (for most of them at least) dependent on ID, but their fame and recognition are as well. If they understood how all the evidence points to evolution they probably couldn't live with themselves. So they close their minds instead.
However, I would have loved to see the uncut interviews with the science proponents. Not that I count on Mathis (?) and Stein releasing them.
Posted by: Magnus | October 21, 2008 12:34 PM
I like how Dembski at UD is complaning about people "gaming" the reviews of expelled over at Amazon. I love how they complain about being excluded from the sciences by the Darwinist cultural elitests...then when they try to sell ID to the populance at large...it gets ripped even more.
Brian
Posted by: Brian | October 21, 2008 1:36 PM
Did anyone notice the animated ad for Expelled merch in the upper right corner? According to that, Berlinski is going to be doing Expelled: The Book. Great: all the vacuity of Expelled combined with all the smug pomposity and tortured prose of David Berlinski. Guaranteed to be the bestselling book of whatever genre in some year.
Posted by: Thomas S. Howard | October 21, 2008 3:23 PM
I commented on the rigged poll on the expelled blog. My comment is currently undergoing moderation. Will it get through? Wait and see!
Posted by: Magnus | October 21, 2008 3:58 PM
"I commented on the rigged poll on the expelled blog. My comment is currently undergoing moderation. Will it get through? Wait and see!"
Possible. It's not UD so maybe. At some point I should check out the comments/flame war? over at Amazon about Expelled.
Brian
Posted by: Brian | October 21, 2008 4:40 PM
Also note from John F's comment that dinosaur descendants also deftly defeated the Darwin defamers. What a delicious irony.
Posted by: Sheri | October 21, 2008 6:00 PM
"Do you think Darwin's theories are OUTDATED? Yes, No, Maybe"
...but Darwin's work is outdated. What do they think biologists have been doing for the past century? Having "We're Right!" parties?
They don't need to rig it. Everyone should ne voting 'Yes' anyway.
Posted by: Magpie | October 21, 2008 6:46 PM
Yeah, Magpie, that is the pedantically correct answer, but that's not what they mean by it, and most people will probably take their meaning: the Modern Theory of Evolution is outdated. The anti-evolution crowd equates that with what Darwin actually thought and wrote about, which they either aren't familiar with or pretend not to be so they can do stuff like create rigged and disingenuous polls.
Posted by: Thomas S. Howard | October 21, 2008 8:48 PM
Of course. But that's my point, really: Our Side generally thinks about their answers, and probably would have had to vote for the Yes side (or, probably, wouldn't have voted at all in such a weasel-word poll). Just saying it was a bit pointless to rig it, since the wording meant it was a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose situation.
Educated people had to vote yes, ignorant nuts would vote yes, the difference in is interpretation. Well done them for crafting the question. Gold star for cunning dishonesty.
Just makes the blatant vote rigging all the stupider.
Posted by: Magpie | October 21, 2008 9:17 PM
Looks like they've fiddled with it now.
Yes 62%
No 26%
Maybe 12%
refreshing to
Yes 63%
No 26%
Maybe 11%
Posted by: noncarborundum | October 22, 2008 2:11 AM
<code>
<poll>
<question/>
<answer votes="72" barColor="#66CC33">Yes</answer>
<answer votes="30" barColor="#66CC33">No</answer>
<answer votes="13" barColor="#66CC33">Maybe</answer>
</poll>
</code>
Posted by: Thomas S. Howard | October 22, 2008 4:13 AM
Forgot to put at the top of #34:
They just re-rigged the poll.
Posted by: Thomas S. Howard | October 22, 2008 4:15 AM
I probed about in their .swf file with a decompiler and found they're using a piece of Flash/XML/PHP called DesignersPoll to operate that poll (this). DesignersPoll stores the results in an XML file on the server; this would be the poll.xml file that Thomas and Tophe have pointed out is extremely suspect. The 4/1/2 "voting" split in the earlier file gives us the 57%/14%/29% results of earler, and the 72/30/13 must give us the results it's currently displaying.
I'd be charitable enough to go by that old "malice/incompetence" adage and say the initial problem was merely an oversight; they put a few votes in as test data but failed to give the polling software permission to write to the XML file on their server (explaining the unchanging results), but the fact that they have clearly stepped in and manually changed the number of votes stored in poll.xml while still not fixing the problem that prevents the poll actually tallying real votes raises a big red flag in the "malice" column for me. Duplicitous through-and-through.
Posted by: MPG | October 22, 2008 6:35 AM
@MPG: I just came to same conclusion myself a minute or so ago, though by different means, and posted about it at here at AtBC
Posted by: Thomas S. Howard | October 22, 2008 7:04 AM
@Thomas S. Howard: Intriguing - I wasn't aware of that second XML file stored on the monarchdigimedia.com server. That may explain the strange poll refresh behaviour, and the one on monarchdigimedia.com is changing in response to votes exactly as one would expect. The XML file on expelledthemovie.com remains stubbornly static though - clearly the poll is still set up to talk to monarchdigimedia.com's server to record the results, though that doesn't explain how the XML file on expelledthemovie.com can change too (I suspect manual intervention there still).
Posted by: MPG | October 22, 2008 9:14 AM
It's been re-rigged once again to 56-36-8
Posted by: Andrew | October 22, 2008 11:19 AM
I don't know about that Andrew. The poll shows 53 - 40 - 7 on my computer. I think they may have fixed it. This, of course, means that it time to ask PZ Myers to have his readers swarm the poll. :P
Posted by: Magnus | October 22, 2008 1:55 PM
Is it time to ask them to remove the No 1 documentary in 2008 story?
I tried and got 55/38/7 so it is either working or they have a randomizer working
Posted by: bystander | October 22, 2008 5:58 PM
My comment was blocked from the blog. It probably for the better for my own sake now that they've fixed the poll. It seems like it could've been an accident anyway.
Posted by: Magnus | October 24, 2008 1:22 PM
Well, they still have 72/30/13 as their numbers...
I tried to comment on their rigged poll last week but of course was censored. Below is my attempt at another post, but I'm sure this won't make it either.
Posted by: Tophe | October 30, 2008 1:08 PM
It's important to remember that ID is in no way religious when you're looking at that ad in the bottom right corner of the website...
Posted by: j.steele | October 30, 2008 2:49 PM
To get off the poll for a moment - and admitedly a couple of you have - I get annoyed at both sides of the party by ignoring or sidestepping the valid evidence of the other side. Too many people assume creation (ie it was all made in an instant) or evolution (ie everything developed from one simple instance of life) are the only two possibilities in a quest that has an infinite number of potential explanations. Intelligent design wouldn't disprove evolution any more than evolution would disprove intelligent design. The only real argument is between those those want Genesis chapters 1-2 in the bible to be read literally and those who refuse the possibility of any kind of God.
Posted by: Wayne McHugh | May 14, 2009 6:19 PM