Crash this poll

You know how we all love to screw up online polls … here's another one. Scroll down to just below "What others are saying", on the left, where the poll question is:

Do you think the theory of Intelligent Design should be taught in our education system?

"Yes" is currently leading by about 3:1. If everyone goes over there and votes "no", it will raise Mark Mathis's blood pressure a few points.

(via Skippy)

More like this

Will his blood pressure increase proportional to the numbers of people voting no?

I sure hope it will be exponential. Anyway, I'm guessing they will just reset the vote as soon as they are losing. They can't afford bad publicity on their own webpage, right?

Done!

By mezzobuff (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Done! Don't read the comments there unless you enjoy pain.

It's surely appropriate to vote "no", but I'd really like to hear the answers to, "What is it?"

By Mike Kandefer (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Wow...already less than 2:1. Nice!

What a great poll, whenever we need a policy decision made, we should consult the people of Myspace. The National Academy of My Space. If Mark Mathis is somehow now de-aging to 17 years old, that violates the laws of thermodynamics, so that means there was a designer, so... I can't keep track of their arguments anymore.

interestingly enough, that's the first decent looking MySpace page I've ever seen. it's unfortunate that it's Expelled's page...

oh yeah! keep 'em comin'

Ha! It even lets you vote multiple times (but I got bored after 5...)

Someone should try to get this on fark.com. The combined PZ/Fark attack could be kind of fun.

916 total votes when I voted NO

It's 491 Yes to 393 No - keep up the good work, everybody!

I love the "comments" from such luminaries as James Dobson and Michael Medved.

Keep it up. we're almost equal now.

By Barklikeadog (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

And I understand "W" wants to use tax money to shore up these bible thumping yahoo's educational system!! What a dunce! What a fuckin' dunce!! When will these slime molds learn to read??!!

By Steven Lingard (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

It won't accept multiple votes, I just looked. You can push the button repetedly but the counter does not change. The most horrorfying part is the comments,"My 16 year old home schooled daughter and I saw Expelled last night. Great Flick!!! Here's Kent Hovind, Dangers of Evolution..." poor kid has'nt got a chance....

We're now officially ahead.

999 votes, and Yes and No are at 49 per cent each.

By Chili Pepper (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Awesome, apparently i was the tying vote!

Incidentally, someone with a MySpace account should post a note like the following: "Nice idea for a movie. But why don't you tell the stories of the people who REALLY got "EXPELLED" -- people like Steve Bitterman, Alex Bolyanatz, Richard Colling, Chris Comer, Christopher diCarlo, Terry Gray, John E. Jones III, Nancey Murphy, Gwen Pearson, Paul Mirecki, Eric Pianka and Howard Van Till? You know, the people, many of whom are faithful Christians, who have been pressured, harassed, fired and even threatened with death for accepting evolution."

Home schooled children have their computer time limited, so they can't do much voting. It's so they don't stumble upon the 8th deadly sin: PZ's blog. I wonder how many Hail Mary's they'd have to say to make up for reading this.

just stay on the page and refresh after each vote

I just voted

45.06% yes

53.66% No

Wooot!

By firemancarl (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

I really do not understand the commenters, from what I've heard it's a terrible film even if you support intelligent design, it's that bad.

Rich @ #17. It did allow me to vote twice. I think it may be because I use the Flashblock extension in Firefox. And if I want to see a flash element played I have to click on it to allow it.

The no's are ahead now! Woot!

i voted "NO", but then thought it over and would like to recant:

why stop at teaching Intelligent Design in biology? we should also teach Flat Earth Science in geology courses. and Perpetual Motion science in physics. and Conspiracy Science in history. discussion of the 4 elements: Air, Earth, Water and Fire should be mandatory in chemistry. Everyone knows the moon landing was faked. This should be brought up in all astronomy courses. also, cooking classes would be vastly improved if it was mentioned that the moon was made of cheese-a infinite source of mozarella!

mmmm...pizza...

hey, what wine would go well with the moon?

"I really do not understand the commenters, from what I've heard it's a terrible film even if you support intelligent design, it's that bad."

You're assuming that the comments are from actual people rather than sockpuppets posted by a PR firm they hired.

I actually had trouble deciding what to vote on this one. The question "Do you think the Theory of Intelligent Design should be taught in our educational system" had two excellent responses -- and the best one was probably the last one: What is it?

What IS the "Theory of Intelligent Design?" In science, the word "theory" does not mean "some idea someone came up with." It's a formal term. What are the mechanisms, the model, the testable predictions? Saying "this sure didn't happen through evolution" is not a science theory. Neither is "looks like someone could have put it together." Nor is "if it works well, someone must have wanted it to work like that."

Still, I voted "no" because, like with all polls, you have to kind of psych out what they intend each response to mean, and I thought the "what is it?" answer was too open to being interpreted as "Great, tell me more!" as opposed to "You ain't got nothin', do ya?"

And I voted once, because I am one.

Well, I did my part.

If it actually required any effort I'd have passed it up. But the general nature of the site would produce a self selected sample group biased towards Yes. Right up until the anti-selected sample group shows up with our shivs and zip guns like at mob riot at a wedding.

By wildcardjack (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

What's the bet the poll will quietly vanish away...

By rattitude (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Just voted:

Yes 493

No 733

Its gonna be a landslide!!!!

voted.
We're up by about 2:1 now.

By wintremute (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Heh, we're winning pretty comprehensively now. I had a quick visual tour around the rest of the site, but the stupid was so overwhelming that I was temporarily blinded. Maybe that's really what happened to Saul on the road to Damascus?

By embertine (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

It is now at 61 % now and climbing fast enough to see significant differences as fast as you can refresh.Woohoo!

By sidelined (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

My vote single handedly put NO to 61%.

By MicroZealous (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Apparently if you reload the webpage you can vote again. You've got to love this (Creation) Scientific polling stuff. It makes ballot box stuffing so easy.

How long before this "poll" gets pulled down? Anyone taking bets?

By wintremute (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

62% for logic and reason. 803-493 is the current tally.

DONE!

Wow, I got a little thrill from helping to crash that poll, what's wrong with me?

sock puppets? sock puppets?!?

Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can lie on the internet will. There is a pestilence upon this land, nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange intelligent design sites are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.

The counter on the "no" side is going up too fast for me to tell if I can vote multiple times or not. It seems to be gaining 5-10 people in the time it takes the page to refresh and then process my vote. The "yes" side has been at 493 since I started paying attention.

Of course, the really sad part is that, when they notice that they are losing the vote, they are going to (a) blame it on a vast atheistic, Darwinianismist conspiracy, and claim that they are being oppressed by big science. This will be taken as a sign that they are in the right! Heh.

Also, ewwwww! MySpace!

Gained 100 yes votes sionce I posted about 4 minutes ago.

@#45

That gave me a good idea. I tried voting for "yes." Still 493.

866 No to 493 Yes
@Blake Stacey - I tried, but you have to be their friend to do it, and I'm not willing to go that far.

When Blake (post #8) voted it was yes (491) v no (374)...

...now its yes (493) v no (924)

What a response...LOL!!!

The trouble is that folks like us see things like Pharyngula each day-- it's troubling to read those comments, and remember just how many people are totally deluded. Anyways, I did my part, and the NO votes are in a far lead at the moment.

I came across the poll from elsewhere, but was pointed here, too. I wanted to leave a comment saying, "I love propaganda" but of course, I can't because that "user" is not my "friend" on the site. Oh well.

Bam! A vote no... wow... rather high on the no sides. I dig. :D

By ishmael9913 (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Sorry. My previous post should have said 100 NO votes.

I think we should start teaching Alchemy.

With a little effort there we could soon have the national debt all fixed.

By Britomart (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Rattitude & wintremute re bet:
I'll bet a pledge of $10 to NCSE! Poll will be offline in 12 hours.

By MicroZealous (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Done, m'lord. Now the No is leading. :P

the NOs outnumber the YESs 2 to one now.

last count : 493 for YES (this hasn't changed at all over twenty minutes)

995 (make that 1005) for NO.

yay!

Done! Whoo-hoo fun! And that's a good question: What is intelligent design? Yes why don't they answer that? I propose the following: "It's a scientifically scientific science-dealy that proposes certain life forms (Behe, Dembski, Hovind, Ham) began their existences abruptly and with certain of their features intact (scales, tails, horns, fake memories, fake sanctimony, idiocy, odor, etc.)

By jetmags73 (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

493 yes:1015 no now

Less than a third voting yes at this time.

We were way ahead when I voted. When will people LEARN! If you're going to release a piece of nonsense propaganda and annoy a lot of well-informed people, don't put up a poll! It will get stuffed - always!

1014 to 493. They must not have as rabid a blogoblog following. All hail use of technology and information for good! oh god I created a new religion... scientology! wait, that one's taken? damn

Still about 2:1 for No, keep up the good work!

By Epinephrine (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

493 yes vs. 980 no: so at least 247 people have voted no since the past person voted yes. Schweet! More fortunately, they are using a third-party poll, so they probably don't have a way to gin the results.

Done.

You know, they say getting atheists to organise en masse is like trying to herd cats... but every time you give us a heads up on an internet poll, we always manage to turn it our way.

Just voted it now stands at:

493 Yes
1075 No.

[sarcasm]
Big Science tries to silence ID Truth again...
[/sarcasm]

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

I would kind of like to see this movie shown in schools. In science class, in fact. It should be shown, as part of a segment on critical thinking, as an excellent example of Orwellian doublespeak propaganda. It really demonstrates how a claim/position, that has no merit what so ever, can be considered viable by people who have never learned how to think objectively.

Matt:
Unbeknownst to you, cat's special power is poll domination.

These people (Creationists/ID proponents) make /no/ sense. Even when I thought I was religious, I absolutely didn't want this subject to be taught in school. Frustrating.

*scratches head*

I don't see why they can't teach the Theory of Intelligent Design in class. After all, it would only take less than 30 seconds.

"Today, children, we're going to learn the entire Theory of Intelligent Design. Are you ready? Here goes...

God did it, now stop asking stupid bloody questions.

There. Now, get your biology textbooks out, and we'll crack on with evolutionary theory."

What about the possibility they created the pool at 400ish Yes and 0 No, to give themselves a head start? No, they'd never bear false witness like that...

493 to 1149.

Let this be a lesson to Ass-Prod Mathis and the rest of Premise Media: don't pin your hopes on something completely unscientific.

Someone used their "comments" section to post a Kent Hovind video, but Intelligent Design has nothing to do with Creationism. Uh huh.

Apr 19 2008 9:29 AM
My 16 year old home schooled daughter and I saw Expelled last night. Great Flick!!! Here's Kent Hovind, Dangers of Evolution...
seminar 5

By Reginald Selkirk (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

11:30, and it's already >2:1 for NO. Nice work everybody!

Done.

You know, they say getting atheists to organise en masse is like trying to herd cats... but every time you give us a heads up on an internet poll, we always manage to turn it our way.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to herd cats when you sling an opened can of catfood or spill milk willy-nilly in your desired direction.

we're killing them. And surprisingly, poll is still online.

Sorry, didn't realize they used a 3rd party. Although maybe they used it without permission, but they don't have a history of doing that already. Wow, I'm incessantly sarcastic.

Wow-- that site is an ugly sight. Couldn't bring myself to list them as 'friend' just to post a comment. But the no vote continues to climb. It's important, I think, not to let these people imagine that their little club is unnoticed or unopposed-- if one call to flood a poll overwhelms their numbers, it's a good message to send, especially if it leaves them gnashing their teeth.

By Bryson Brown (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Actually, I've been able to vote quite a few times, and I've been paying attention to the counter and it definitely goes up. I'm trying to get the "What is it" vote up.

Good times.

You forgot the maroon banner alerting us to our orders. :)

I refuse.

I'm not doing anything until I get my Friday cephalopod, thank you very much.

Coral Ridge Ministries is on their friend list.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

The results of the poll show the text "Thank you, we have already counted your vote." at the top. That would suggest that one cannot vote twice.

1375 No vs 495 Yes.
Yesss! :D

Who's taking bets on how long it stays up now that it's
65.74% no to 24.12% yes?

Can't wait to see the "PZ hacked our website" claims...

Just voted and this is so much fun. The NOs are way ahead.

By sf atheist (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Done! Don't read the comments there unless you enjoy pain.

That's a good warning for any myspace page, really. But I do have to agree somewhat with #9. Unlike most myspace pages, the site didn't IMMEDIATELY make my eyes bleed.

Well, except for the pictures of Ben Stein...

495 Yes
1400 NO
As of 1142 EDT

BWAHAHAHAHA!

Just a thought, PZ, in the future, you might consider creating an e-mail alert list for situations like this. I'm fairly sure that someone from the creo camp will read this post, and cry 'FOUL' about this effort. It would be more effective to be able to do this kind of action on the sly...

By Blaidd Drwg (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

496 Yes
1509 No

As of 10:47CDT

Made me laugh out loud, that did.

I mean, er... sorry, poor little film! So sorry!

>>chortle<<

It's now 1483 to 496.

It's depressing, though, the number of reasonably intelligent people who are being taken in by the film. Go check out www.mrcranky.com/movies/expelled.html.

The reviewer there, even though he pans the movie, accepts as fact the moviemakers' claims that people are being fired and harrassed in the scientific/educational community for promoting Intelligent Design. Oh, and the reviewer also mixes up Evolution with Abiogenesis. Please, a couple of people, pop by the site and leave comments.

#92, some wrong people will sneak onto the list and point to a secret conspiracy, might as well keep it in the open. Its a public vote either way.

Yes (496 votes)

No (1683 votes)

Guys, you're only 200 votes away from pushing 'yes' into 3rd place behind 'What is it'.

I suggest a change of tactics!

Soon the poll will be gone and all that will remain will be their traffic statistics.

Maybe we haven't thought this through...

LOL this is hilarious, the pharyngula community is amazing. vote tied in 20 minutes, and 1:3 --> 3:1 reversal in an hour!

i want to vote but cant go on myspace during work! :(

it's now less than 20% yes, more than 65% no, with the rest as What is it, or Not sure.

Did anyone else notice the Petition they link to near the top
of the page? They're planning to send it to "appropriate state and federal education officials and departments."

Well, it's hardly a fair or meaningful vote in the first case, being based on the Expelled myspace.

I can't see the poll, just a gray box that says "POLL" at the top but is otherwise empty. Did they pull it?

By Curt Cameron (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Why all of a sudden the increase in "What is it?" votes?

Someone just put up a "Stop Atheism in Our Schools" Expelled flyer on a bulletin board at work. I have removed it and will keep checking for more.

Good to see the votes adding up.

Come on, only a few more votes to push "What is it" past "Yes"!

Hmm, fair enough, maybe people were just voting right around the same time I did and I missed that little bit, but the counter still went up. Either way this is great haha.

Good stuff.

And #102, the poll is still there right now at 12:00 EDT.

By Robert Ward (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Right click, you've probably got crap protection enabled.

By Hank Roberts (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

has anyone seen densha otoko? (japanese drama and movie and novel and manga)

the pharyngula online community reminds me of that :p

Boo yah! Just voted and it now stands at:
17% yes
64.61% no
and there are more "what is it" votes than ID yes votes.

Classy! Interesting lives many of you lead... getting this much pleasure out of messing up an online poll that means nothing- NICE!

I just performed my duty, oh master. What else would you like me to do?

("Yes" is getting creamed now.)

man, proxies are only good for one extra vote... dang.
oh well, I got in one vote for me, one for my doctor mom, one for doctor stepdad, and one for my creationist stepmom (who agrees with evolution she just doesn't know it yet) (I have two computers at my house)!

When I did my ballot box stuffing duty, we were at 15.09% yes, 64.62% no, and 20.05% for What is it? Which for What is it, happened to be 666 votes.

...I really hope it stays that way. :)

Haaahahahahaha!

Just voted. Current standings:

YES: 500 votes
NO: 2088 votes
NOT SURE: 8 votes

But more interestingly:
WHAT IS IT?: 658 votes

When you get more "Huh?" votes than "Yes" votes, you know you're flogging a dead horse.

Or possibly a small lizard that with time will evolve into a horse and die, thus sacrificing its life that you could have something to flog. As the unidentified Creator doubtless planned it.

Yes, happened to be... =D

No, no, no, MikeB. Leave the flyers up. Ridicule is the tool to use in this case. If you remove them, they will complain that they are being censored. And if everyone has the right to post flyers, management could end up agreeing with them. So what to do?

I'd suggest posting a flyer that agrees with them, like:
"Ya! Get godlessness out of schools! Remove the atheist doctrine of Heliocentrism! Remove chemistry for its failure to thank Jesus for all chemical interactions! The theory of Gravity has no mention of God! REMOVE IT!"
Nothing is better than raking someone over the coals, not for their ideas, but with their ideas.

As for a backlash to this poll, what are they going to say? "Hey you skewed our poll we were skewing"? It's like complaining to mom that big brother hit me back.

By Michael X (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

<confused>One comment, by Justin, reads, "Great Movie! And Happy Belated Easter!", yet has an image of Ben Stein spray-painting the XVIVO video vesicle with the caption: "What? It's not a copy/Ours is brown!"
</confused>

9:11 AM Oregon time, just voted. It's 2106 no to 500 yes. Thats how you herd cats - point the way and those that want to go - will. *grin*

By Patricia C. (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

the NO'S were way ahead at the time I voted, made the mistake of reading some comments there, had to get out the Jim Beam to ease the brain pain.

By Ex Partiate (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Classy! Interesting lives many of you lead... getting this much pleasure out of messing up an online poll that means nothing- NICE!

Oh noes, we have ruined the carefully-designed and noramlized methodology of the MySpace poll by actually voting in it, and probably wasted huge amounts of research money in the process. However shall we atone for this terrible act!?!

Oh--one more thing.

Why is it that all the concerned Christianists in that comment thread seem to post spam images? You know: Care Bears, Angels, Mysterious Disembodied Hands?

Strikes me as the calling card of the soft-of-head.

I see 'What is it?' has exactly 666 votes...

By Stuart Ritchie (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Nice machine you've got here, PZ!

TO THE DICK TO THE DAWK TO THE P THE Z...

:-)

lol

-Rusty

By minusRusty (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

At the moment, 66% "No" and 19% "What is it".

Yes - stuck at 502 while I have been watching

No - 2126 when I voted now at 2326.

Maybe they will change the sense of the question so as to switch the results.

I do like justin's comment from April 3, though.

I know it's not part of your $1M salary, but since we did this, can you put more horoscopes up. I can't decide how to live my life without knowing what's in my Pisces outlook for today.

Yes - stuck at 502 while I have been watching

Meaning they've picked up an enormous eleven votes in the past hour and a half or so.

Yes 503
No 2436
What is it? 666

I feel honoured to have voted no whilst the What is ID? vote stood at 666! The devil is in the details!
xxx :)

You'll notice that the movie blog doesn't have my "negative" (but constructive and polite) comment. I think they're screening those.

That site honestly reads like a Viagra ad. "Are you uncomfortable with evolution? Try ID." Just replace "evolution" with "sexual performance" and replace "ID" with Viagra or any of the others.

Oooh look, one post from me (#97) and trivial, unimportant things happen on the web. Without me even voting myself!

Perhaps this is what it feels like to be PZ :)

I just visited the site to see how the voting was going, and I didn't vote. But when I revisited the site, I was informed that my vote was already counted. Even though I didn't even try to vote. I wonder which way my vote was tallied.

By anonymous (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

As of 12:21 pm eastern:

Should ID be taught?

Yes: 504
No: 2518
What is it?: 666

Bwahahahahahahahahaha! ID has the mark of the beast! Not only is ID not science, but it's the work of the devil! Does this make Dembski the antichrist? The end times are upon us, my friends...

The 666 is ruined!

...and while writing my above post I was preempted by Simon. Got to be quick with the funny at Pharyngula.

"This site is currently unavailable."

Looks like I missed my chance to vote.

[framer]

People, this poll-crashing HELPS BEN STEIN!!!!!!!

[/framer]

By Screechy Monkey (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

70% for no. Is that a passing grade?

By aequidens (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

gt fckd

[the creationists weigh in with their usual wit and insight! --pzm]

Site is still there:

Yes - 515
No - 3044
What is it? - 669 (Sigh)

it is now at
yes-500
no-3000

513 Yes 12.31%
2976 No 71.44%
699 What is it? 16.06%

The joke column is doing better than the Yes...

Keep it up guys.

By Matti Seppi (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

There are now 3,102 NO votes.

Only 12% of the votes are in favor of teaching magic in science classes.

I've voted.

Can I just say I love the irony of this comment on their page (some newlines removed because it doesn't deserve to take up that much space):

I just got back from watching EXPELLED tonight, and all I can say is
"BRILLIANT!"

Thank you Mr. Stein for putting a crack in the wall.

Once upon a time, scientists "knew" that the Earth was flat.

Scientists "knew" that the sun and other planets revolved around the Earth.

Scientists "knew" that inanimate matter such as raw meat could spontaneously generate into animate matter such as flies.

Thanks to Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Pasteur and other rebels of scientific thought, who dared to question accepted "facts," modern scientists now know that many past "truths" were false.

However, each of those past mistaken beliefs led to a more real understanding of life and of our universe.

There would have been no Einstein without Newton.

In a sense, there has been an "evolution" of science, and now, IT IS TIME FOR DARWINISM TO EVOLVE!

Hopefully, the day will come when the names of Meyer, Sternberg, Gonzales and others featured in this magnificent film will be added to the list of great minds like those above who questioned authority,
and who will have helped bring us out of the dark ages of Darwinism and into the enlightened knowledge of Intelligent Design!

LET THE GREAT DEBATE BEGIN!

Thank You and God Bless!

I think he means "Thanks to Aristotle, Copernicus, Galileo, Pasteur, Darwin..."

Interesting website, especially as a response to those liars who are claiming that "Expelled" is not a Christian movie, even though its producers and writers are all evangelical Christians. That website is promoting Christian bands, Christian magazines, books by Christian apologists (Lee Strobel), and even young-earth-creationism-promoting Christian ministries like the late D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge Ministries.

Hank Roberts wrote:
Right click, you've probably got crap protection enabled.

I turned off AdBlock, I enabled all scripting, and enabled cookies, but it's still a blank box. This is all in Firefox, and my IE is locked down so much it hardly shows any content there. I guess I'll just have to keep up with the results by reading comments here.

By Curt Cameron (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Yes - 517
No - 3207
WTFII? 670

Yikes, I tried to make a comment, but I got sent to myspace and told I had to be someone's friend to comment. Did I hit the wrong button or something? I don't WANT to be expelled's BFF.

@Screechy Monkey -- you framer, you, haha!

But, hold on, shouldn't it be "taught" in say, an intro Philosophy of Science course on the distinction between Science and Pseudoscience? (The University of Toronto does, indeed, deal with this, in their course "Science and Pseudoscience").

The philosopher Michael Ruse (I'm sure PZ has heard of him), in fact, has a paper in the seminal "Philosophy of Science: The Central Issues" by Curd & Cover, called "Creation-Science is Not Science".

Brilliant stuff, EVERYONE should take that course.

*I realize the poll is probably talking about highschool biology classes... but I had to play devil's advocate*

72% No at 11:44am.

There's even a commenter promoting Kent Hovind!

But no, this isn't promoting Christianity or young-earth creationism...

BTW, one of my coworkers just referred to intelligent design as "creationism wearing a paper bag on its head."

#64, look what horrid cr&p you made me stumble on. I say everyone have a go at that comment board.

Since #146 posted, "yes" has gone down from 12% to 11.2%, and "no" has gained 321 votes (from 3,102 to 3,423).

Nice work, pharyngulites.

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

So, I went to lunch and came back to 3400 No votes and almost 75%. I have to say I'm impressed.

@110

How is voting messing up an online poll? We are online and we are giving our honest opinion. Is it messing it up if you don't agree with it?

Yes. Of course it should be taught. It's education, after all. Now, it probably shouldn't be presented as science, because "Intelligent Design" isn't science, it's a philosophical and socioanthropological concept. If it's taught in a sociology, philosophy, comparative religion, or event civics/current events sort of curriculum, that would be absolutely appropriate. It might even be appropriate as a lead in to discussions on mathematical complexity, chaos, and population genetics since all those things address the issue as well.

By Zag Doughnut (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Someone mentioned a dating banner on the site. I got one too: "Chinese Ladies for Marriage". Ah ah ah, Do they only have dating banners? Is that an attempt to promote marriage and create new little creationists??

Perhaps this is what it feels like to be PZ

Don't wish that on yourself. I've got a worsening sore throat and a whole lot of grading and writing to do...it doesn't feel so good to be PZ right now.

I find it interesting that people from "new/modern" countries like the USA etc are affected by such nonsense (ID and other crap). People over here in Greece are extremely religious but still accept evolution as a fact. I think you folks over there must cure the cause of these uber extreme "Christianity issues" instead of having these atheists vs christians debates ;o. I believe that somebody must be extremely miserable and have a bad life in order to turn to religion as last resort/hope like that. Sorry if I don't make much sense :)

My favorite comment:
"Saw the preview version in Albuquerque...must say, that Mark Mathis and the rest of the crew did a fine job. Loved the discussions with Richard Dawkins and Euginie Scott...It's shocking to hear such aetheistic and hostile speach from such scientific and "open minded" people.
Keep spittin' fire!"

Because:
1)Ammunition against my buddy from Albuquerque the next time he mocks my occasionally backwards home city;

2)The commenter confounds open-mindedness with credulity;

3)I learned a new word! I don't know what "aetheistic" signifies, but I figure based on the spelling that the root must be Greek.

By Stephanie (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Most of the Expelled page is an appeal to discomfort. ("Does evolution scare you?" basically.) Isn't there a technical name for this sort of fallacy?

Haha over at that site I mentioned is the classic, classic unsubstantiated need for tight control of their comments I've seen so many times:

"Because certain atheists have posted bizarre pornographic images and obscenities on our blog, we have been forced to enable comment moderation."

@Spinoza -- I agree with you for the most part -- I even wanted to make a comment about that when I answered the poll (but it sent me to MySpace, but that's another story), but part of me thinks that as it stands, ID isn't even coherent enough to be taught in a Philosophy of Science course. One minute they say ID has nothing to do with religion, and in the next breath they are contradicting that.

That being said, I agree that everyone should take a similar course.

I just looked over the comments. Ow! My head!
The level of iconography going on is a bit much.

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
Exodus 20:4 (As in Commandment #2!)

I swear. Don't these people even read their own holy book?

Oh! Tee hee...

But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work
you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.
Exodus 20:10

Belief in the Bible leads to slavery!

I know this is Off Topic (tm), but I think it is funny that not one of the "What others are saying" on myspace nor the getexpelled(read more) is qualified to say anything about either evolution OR I.D.

I do notice that most of them are somewhat qualified to talk about religion though.

Well, unless I.D. is creationism, then Revs Wildmon and Steir, Drs. Packer and Dobson, as well as Ken, Pat, and Kirk do have something to say, since any fool can talk about creationism.

I say everyone have a go at that comment board.

Sorry Dennis, but as truly independent freethinkers trying to undermine the dogmatic orthodoxy of the day, they've enabled comment moderation.

*Fingers in ears* La-la-la! You guys can't stand honest inquiry! La-la-la.

May Cthulhu savour their decomposing flesh last.

@#147 Selcaby quoted:

Once upon a time, scientists "knew" that the Earth was flat.

Scientists "knew" that the sun and other planets revolved around the Earth.

Yes, and where did these gems of scientific "knowledge" come from? The...wait a minute...I've almost got it...rhymes with libel...

Also, even millenia before the voyages of Chris Columbus, most educated people accepted the fact that the earth was not flat, but rather spherical in shape. Pythagoras, Aristotle, and Plato all were aware of this fact. For example, in his De Caelo, Aristotle made the following arguments for a spherical earth:

Every portion of the earth tends toward the center until by compression and convergence they form a sphere. (De caelo, 297a9-21); Travelers going south see southern constellations rise higher above the horizon; and The shadow of Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse is round. (De caelo, 297b31-298a10)

(Shamelessly lifted from Wikipedia)

This knowledge wasn't conveniently forgotten by Columbus et al either; despite some ignorant religious people's silly misunderstanding of geography, pretty much all scientists and sailors accepted that the earth was round (sound familiar? anyone? anyone?). The whole thing about Columbus et al thinking the earth was flat is a silly myth propogated by Washington Irvine's fantastical The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus and by misguided, undereducated K-12 history teachers everywhere.

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

@Dennis -- when they say "bizarre pornographic images and obscenities" on their blog, I think they mean charts of transitional forms and cladistic diagrams, etc.

Less people want it taught then don't know what it is, this I find almost as funy as the 3000+ no votes.

"they are going to (a) blame it on a vast atheistic, Darwinianismist conspiracy" Yeah, but this time it's true, we are conspiring against this poll. No evil reason, it's just fun! 76.83% and still rising!

Just voted - No is now 78.28%, nearly 4000 no's to about 500 yes's.

I wonder how long that will last till it gets either removed or the yes's "miraculously" catch up.

Off topic, but PZ, is there anyway you could change the script you use to post links in order to make them go to a new window/tab when people click on them? It makes me sad when I'm navigated away from Pharyngula and onto a creationist nonsense page whenever I forget to manually make the link open in a new tab.

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Stephanie (#163): I think "aetheism" would have to be the belief that the atmosphere is God.

I had to vote "What is it?" because I have yet to actually hear of a "theory of Intelligent Design". They don't have anything that even rises to the level of hypothesis, much less theory.

By ShavenYak (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Well, at least they've got the idea of Expelled: the movement partially right.

They forgot to include 'bowel' as the penultimate word, though.

Must be more of Miller's shitty, shitty writing.

Probably worth doing but it won't work. This is Mathis et al., a vicious group of pathological liars. When the voting is done, they will just Make Something Up.

I'm surprised they haven't posted the glowing review of the movie from Jesus and the Holy Spirit yet.

Move Zig!

Not everyone who believes in ID is an uneducated idiot. There are many brilliant scientists, widely respected in their fields, who don't consider the concept of ID to be in opposition to science.

Many scientific theories are not agreed upon by everybody. I'm not saying that ID should be taught in schools--at that level, perhaps the most common theories should be presented.

But please, don't make blanket statements that personally attack those who take the less popular viewpoint.

By Physics PhD st… (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

@#182 raven:

I'm surprised they haven't posted the glowing review of the movie from Jesus and the Holy Spirit yet.

Soon you'll see at the beginning of the movie: "I'm Jesus Christ, and I endorse this message."

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Is there an Expelled: Exposed MySpace page?

I voted no. The "friends" section is truly a collection of fools. And the comments: oh I loved it!, oh God is so great!, oh Mark Mathis is a genius! Talk about easy. These people employ a fast food drive-up window mentality about facts.

By BlueIndependent (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

wow i read the post and voted no, saw the results as 510 to 4800 and was like 'ahhh maybe i accidentally voted for the wrong one!!', but upon more careful reading, they YES's are absolutely dominating!!!

and in a span of only 3 hours!

@184: Which common theories would those be?

By Valmorian (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

And another one.

Yes: 542
No: 4908
Not Sure: 11
What is it?: 702

#160 (the great PZ): "I've got a worsening sore throat..."

Suck on one of these until it melts in your mouth. It works for me.

Solaray CranActin Cranberry AF Extract
Guaranteed bacterial antiadherence activity
180 Vegetarian Capsules for $18.39
http://www.myvitanet.com/

well of course theres no 'theory' of intelligent design to begin with, well not a scientific one anyway.

creati...ID could be mentioned alongside many, many other creation myths/ideas in religious studies lessons, do they even do that in the USA????

By extatyzoma (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

The comments section on that is probably one of the most moronic things I have seen on all of the internet.

It must be working. Only three minutes after Andy C's post, I voted, and it was 5,023 votes no to 543 yes. Keep it up, folks!

By Slaughter (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Just voted...

Yes - 542 or 8.7%
No - 5011 or 79.8% (YAY)
WTF - 703 or 11.28%
NS - 12 or .19%

Fun fun fun... and I do have a myspace, but I'm NOT friending the freaks!
Gag.

By gramomster (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Haha, even the what is it option is beating the yes now.

wow, according to the blurb on that webpage we could be just 'lucky mud'!!

expelledthemovement!!!! i thought movements were always expelled, with a bit of peristalsis.

By extatyzoma (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Ah, too late...

It's just moving too fast to keep up with...

*sigh*

must. finish. paper.

By gramomster (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

WOW

5189 votes for "No", only 545 votes for "Yes".
Hell, there's more votes for "What is it?" (705)
This is priceless!

It wouldn't let me vote a 2nd time.

There are now 5,179 NO votes. 80.41%.

Only 8.46% votes are in favor of magic.

Not everyone who believes in ID is an uneducated idiot. There are many brilliant scientists, widely respected in their fields, who don't consider the concept of ID to be in opposition to science.

Many scientific theories are not agreed upon by everybody. I'm not saying that ID should be taught in schools--at that level, perhaps the most common theories should be presented.

But please, don't make blanket statements that personally attack those who take the less popular viewpoint.

Name them. We already know who they are, what they've done, and where they've got off the deep end trying to reconcile their religious dogmas with the wealth of evidence that contradicts said viewpoints. Do you?

Further, ID's failing as a science has nothing to do with popularity. It's not a science because it doesn't depend on evidence, makes no predictions, and has little to no explanatory whatsoever, especially when compared against the theory of evolution.

It's unfortunate that you feel personally attacked for supporting ID, but rather than making appeals to authority, perhaps you'd do better by actually looking at what those 'brilliant, widely-respected' IDiots are claiming, and how their claims fall short.

i suppose the question should be saying something like

'should the hypothesis of ID be taught in science classes alongside the theory of evolution?'**

** before answering the poll please familiarise yourself with the scientific usage of 'hypothesis' and 'theory' first.

By extatyzoma (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Well, we are now destroying them by about 900:1. To bad winning in school board meetings isn't that easy.

By sacredchao (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

"No" is now at 80.42% with 5183 votes.
"Yes" is 8.46% with 545 votes.

Mathis will be screaming about PZ's "manipulation" as Expelled drops like a ID lead balloon at the box office.

By mayhempix (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Heck, I tried to sneak another vote in but it caught me. Silly me!

Liar for Jesus from DFN:

Not everyone who believes in ID is an uneducated idiot. There are many brilliant scientists, widely respected in their fields, who don't consider the concept of ID to be in opposition to science.

That is a lie. You are a fundie Xian. Fundie Xian Cultist=Liar is as proven as the germ theory of disease. You also aren't a physics Ph.D. candidate at an ivy. More likely trailer trash in Kansas somewhere.

There are a few kooks and religious fanatics with degrees who push ID based on their religious beliefs. So what, there are a few kooks such as the guy at Harvard who believe that reptiloid aliens kidnap people and stick probes up their rear end. And many more brilliant scientists end up in detox programs or mental hospitals than believe ID.

A better measure would be the number of secular or atheist scientists who believe in ID. There is probably one or two and they are probably in an involuntary lockup somewhere.

Look at the numbers. Acceptance of evolution among relevant scientists in the USA is over 99%. It is higher in Europe.

Good grief, the comments on that page...

I didn't actually realise it was possible to get stupid in an even more concentrated form than on the average MySpace page.

Just voted. An honest question deserves an honest answer.

@184,

Could you identify, say, three of the 'many brilliant scientists, widely respected in their fields,' who are sympathetic to ID?

I'll bet those creo morons are fuming! They'll probably called in the real wackos like Planet Killer to infest our site with the dregs of insanity! I tried to get in this message: "Expell them all from this planet"!

This is not the behavior of science minded people. This is the behavior of zealots. And the saddest commentary on the state of US education is that none of the proud people on this page who are going out of their way to skew a well intentioned poll realize that they an unfortunate example of the carnivorous zealotry they so passionately reject as "religious behavior"...

But this of course explains the state of the USA today.

Worshipping science as a religion to the exclusion of civilized behavior and discourse is not the same thing as being science minded.

But it will get you into Mr. Dawkin's little cult.

a well intentioned poll

I'm calling bullshit.

By Michael X (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

I've voted eight times: once on each of the systems at my office! I feel like a delusional republican creationist voting that many times.

Current standings: 533 Yes vs. 5635 No

By Rick Schauer (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

184 @ Not everyone who believes in ID is an uneducated idiot. There are many brilliant scientists, widely respected in their fields, who don't consider the concept of ID to be in opposition to science.

Sure, the Expelled people make the same argument. It's only by happy chance that ID mirrors it's proponents religious beliefs to the letter. If only we atheists could see beyond the blinders of naturalism and accept that the supernatural has a place in science.

I hope you feel better soon PZ, we need you!
*hug*

"a well intentioned poll" from above

Don't be silly, it's a politically loaded poll if there ever was one.

5700+ "No" to 540 "Yes" Votes, better than a 10:1 lead!

@#210 Darwin:

Worshipping science as a religion to the exclusion of civilized behavior and discourse is not the same thing as being science minded

If you've followed any number of threads on this blog, you'll know that many of the posters here have tried (with little success) to engage creationists in civilized discourse. Unfortunately, it's impossible to do this on Expelled's myspace page because they censor the comments. So instead of being able to engage in civilized discourse, all we can do is put our votes in at the poll. And how voting in an open internet poll is 'uncivilized' is a bit beyond me...creationist blogs are free to put up posts encouraging their readers to do the same. This is just an expression of public opinion. Any duplicate voting is simply something that comes with the territory when it comes to internet polls. I'm sure people on both sides are doing it.

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

This is not the behavior of science minded people.

That's right. I mean, how many of you wore your white lab coats when you voted? How many held a clipboard and wore protective glasses? How many got a thoughtful little frown and said "hmm" a few times first? Huh? Huh?

Rich Schauer, is that not rather foolish - both doing it and then (even more foolish) admitting it HERE of all places - he expelled guys will be checking the links to their page and reading the comments here. Sorry, but you and the others who said they tried to vote several times have just given the expelled guys the perfect pretext to remove the poll and point questioners to your comment.

@#218 kmarissa --

*gasp* You're right! I remembered my protective goggles, but utterly forgot the lab coat. I'd better put that on and go to another one of my work computers and vote again, this time in a science-minded fashion.

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Now this is entertainment!! Over 200 comments. I am ... gleeful.

But this of course explains the state of the USA today.

Really? Science zealots explains the state of the USA today? What part of the state does it explain? Poverty? War? Unequal access to healthcare? Bette Midler's lack of recent movie rolls?

Please explain what you mean (I won't even ask why you think your statement merits an 'of course'), for as it stands, your statement is completely devoid of meaning. Since we all know the 'state of the USA today' is probably most simply described as a dynamic and complex system, pointing to one factor and screaming Aha! is most probably incorrect, you might as well have said "Dandelions the state of the USA today" and retained the same truth value.

But as I'm not the type of man to criticise another's idea without offering a suitable if not better replacement, I'll offer up a truer statement for you to chew on: You're a fucking idiot.

Learn to explicate the premises underlying your conclusions (y'know, actually make an argument), or go cry somewhere else.

Science zealots? hurray! 8:1!

Fundie Death Cultist:

This is not the behavior of science minded people. This is the behavior of zealots.

Weren't you a Ph.D in physics a few minutes ago? Hope your trailer in Lower Boondocks, Kansas hasn't been hit by the tornados in the midwest lately.

The real story is the persecution of scientists by Fundie Xian Death cultists, who have fired, harassed, beaten up, and killed evolutionary biologists and their supporters whenever they can.

This is, of course, exactly the behavior of zealots who long ago forgot what the Christ in Christian stood for. These days, fundie is synonymous with liar, ignorant, stupid, and sometimes killer.

http://www.sunclipse.org/?p=626 [link goes to Blake Stacey's blog which has a must read essay with documentation of the cases below.]

As usual the truth is the exact opposite. The creos have been firing, beating up, attempting to fire, and killing scientists and science supporters for a while now. They are way ahead on body counts.

Posting the list of who is really being beaten up, threatened, fired, attempted to be fired, and killed. Not surprisingly, it is scientists and science supporters by Death Cultists.

I've discovered that this list really bothers fundies. Truth to them is like a cross to a vampire.

There is a serious reign of terror by Xian fundie terrorists directed against the reality based academic community, specifically acceptors of evolution. I'm keeping a running informal tally, listed below. They include death threats, firings, attempted firings, assaults, and general persecution directed against at least 11 people. The Expelled Liars have totally ignored the ugly truth of just who is persecuting who.

If anyone has more info add it. Also feel free to borrow or steal the list.

I thought I'd post all the firings of professors and state officials for teaching or accepting evolution.

2 professors fired, Bitterman (SW CC Iowa) and Bolyanatz (Wheaton)

1 persecuted unmercifully Richard Colling (Olivet)

1 attempted firing Murphy (Fuller Theological by Phillip Johnson IDist)

1 successful death threats, assaults harrasment Gwen Pearson (UT Permian)

1 state official fired Chris Comer (Texas)

1 assault, fired from dept. Chair Paul Mirecki (U. of Kansas)

1 killed, Rudi Boa, Biomedical Student (Scotland)

Death Threats Eric Pianka UT Austin and the Texas Academy of Science engineered by a hostile, bizarre IDist named Bill Dembski

Death Threats Michael Korn, fugitive from justice, towards the UC Boulder biology department and miscellaneous evolutionary biologists.

Death Threats Judge Jones Dover trial. He was under federal marshall protection for a while

Up to 11 with little effort. Probably there are more. I turned up a new one with a simple internet search. Haven't even gotten to the secondary science school teachers.

And the Liars of Expelled have the nerve to scream persecution. On body counts the creos are way ahead.

"But please, don't make blanket statements that personally attack those who take the less popular viewpoint."

Because science is about viewpoints...right?

BTW, what testable hypothesis does ID present???

Bueller?

By Not Ben Stein (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Bette Midler's lack of recent movie rolls

Hmm. I believe I meant roles. She may not be working on the silver screen, but I'm sure she's not going hungry.

I just voted. ~ 83% no, 8% yes, and most of the rest are what is its.
This is kind of sad. Did you look at the page's friends, btw? none of them are people. Which I think is weird.

Nothing about Expelled has been well intentioned up to this point. Why start with the poll?

Suck on one of these until it melts in your mouth. It works for me.

Solaray CranActin Cranberry AF Extract
Guaranteed bacterial antiadherence activity
180 Vegetarian Capsules for $18.39

In the interest of healthy skepticism, I'd love to see the studies that implicate cranberry in oral bacterial antiadherence. I am aware that there was an antiadherence effect posited in UTI (as opposed to an acidity effect), but is there any evidence that this holds true anywhere outside the bladder?

6166 NO
564 YES

I hope everyone is limiting themselves to ONE vote, or we can rightly be accused of cheating.

However, posting a link, and having people cast their vote is perfectly legit in a public poll, isn't it?

PZ,

This poll is a fun way to annoy Mathis and company, but that MySpace site preaches to the converted and the poll will probably disappear. May I recommend that we use our numbers to make an impact in polls that would be read by the average moviegoer? For example:

The Internet Movie Database. Registration is free and lets you read the discussion sections, make comments, and rate movies. Expelled is at 3.6/10.

Yahoo Movies (movies.yahoo.com). Expelled is getting a B!

Rotten Tomatoes (www.rottentomatoes.com). Fortunately, the drubbing that Expelled is getting at the hands of the critics (0% positive reviews by top critics, 10% positive reviews overall) can't be tampered with, but notice the user rating: 53%.

Fandango (www.fandango.com). Expelled is rated "Go!"

What do you say, PZ? We could take them down a peg or three.

Dawrin @ #210 "This is not the behavior of science minded people. This is the behavior of zealots. And the saddest commentary on the state of US education is that none of the proud people on this page who are going out of their way to skew a well intentioned poll realize that they an unfortunate example of the carnivorous zealotry they so passionately reject as "religious behavior"..."

Actually this is just how it's done on the internet. The whole point of the medium is to anonymously insult other people and look at dirty pictures.

Anyway as a Christian you KNOW we atheists secretly worship Satan so what do expect out of us?

It's what are dark (tentacled) master commands.

Hey everybody!! Let's vote on what's true!! YAY!!

IDiots.

To all you complainers and especially the anti-science morons, if you are over the age of 40, you most likely would already be dead without the contributions of science. If you managed somehow to keep yourself alive, all of your teeth would probably be gone and you would be plagued with a host of ailments. You certainly would be on your way out. So keep praying to your deity about your problems. Dumb-asses.

Consider that poll crashed. The 'no's' are killing 'em...

By wooddragon (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

The 2nd law of thermodynamics demanded that I flip a coin before voting, lest I increase the amount of information in the myspace closed system. Since I'm an intelligent designer and not bounded by the laws of nature I ignored the coin flip and voted 'no'.

Dawrin @ #210 "This is not the behavior of science minded people. This is the behavior of zealots. And the saddest commentary on the state of US education is that none of the proud people on this page who are going out of their way to skew a well intentioned poll realize that they an unfortunate example of the carnivorous zealotry they so passionately reject as "religious behavior"..."

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha... You people have destroyed the quality of education, with your intollerence and idiocy, in America to such an extent that:

A. We "think" we're great.
B. We suck-ass across the board.

You guys have destroyed history, science, literature, art and English. Only math hasn't been attacked by you boobs. And you constantly push your effing religion down the throats of our children, directly or indirectly, every chance you get.

So piss-off if you don't like us fucking with a bunch of lying asswipes who want to take us even closer to the dark ages than we are today.

However, posting a link, and having people cast their vote is perfectly legit in a public poll, isn't it?

Not really, at least according to the IDiots. PZ's posting of this link constitutes an educational service, and we know they're absolutely vehement that nobody educated about the issue should have a say.

Why else would they invite church groups and not scientists to a movie that purports to be about science?

"Only math hasn't been attacked by you boobs."

Pi = 3 any other answer is THE WORK OF SATAN!

By Bubba Hayseed (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Poll update

570 votes or 7.25% YES

6571 votes or 83.55% NO

By firemancarl (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Not everyone who believes in ID is an uneducated idiot. There are many brilliant scientists, widely respected in their fields, who don't consider the concept of ID to be in opposition to science. ...

Posted by: Physics PhD student at an Ivy | April 25, 2008 1:21 PM

No there aren't. There are people who've gone off the deep end and have had their cachet of respect lost because of this. Just like Kerry Mullis and Peter Duesberg lost their cachet of respect because of their HIV denial.

Yes: 570
No: 6,586 (and flying higher each time I refresh)

As George W Bush would say: "Mission accomplished!"

#219, dyak,
What? Per contra, Si vis pacem para bellum! Primas sum: primatum nil a me alienum puto.

By Rick Schauer (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Meyrick Kirby @ I thought all atheists worshiped the flying spaghetti monster?!

Which in the mind of a Christian would be Satan. They're only going to look at the FSM and say "HAH Caught you! You see, those atheists really believe the divine!" and in the Xian world view any god not God is Satan.

Just noticed that the first three digits of the "no" votes right now are "666"...Hope we're not accidentally triggering the apocalypse. I forgot to pay my rapture insurance this month....

"since any fool can talk about creationism." (mas528) #168 You actually got it backwards, it is written in the bible: "the fool has said in his heart there is no God".

By Michael Woelfel (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Darwin & other miffed creobots:

Um... Participating in a public online poll is what now? Choosing the option that best reflects our beliefs -- an option, moreover, made available to us by the authors of the poll -- is *not* "ruining" the poll or "skewing" the results. Neither is thus participating unscientific or just an exercise in zealotry.

If you kids only want input from those who would say "yes", you have two courses of action: 1) make the poll private, only available to those who are friends with that particular MySpace group; or 2) remove "no" from the list of possible answers. Since you and your cronies went neither of these routes, quit your whining: we're simply playing *your* game by *your* rules.

#239
Go...Moses!

By Rick Schauer (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Rick Schauer in post # 213

"I've voted eight times"

Well Congratulations! Now you can count yourself among the IDiots in terms of honesty and integrity. W

By sidelined (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

"since any fool can talk about creationism." (mas528) #168 You actually got it backwards, it is written in the bible: "the fool has said in his heart there is no God".

Posted by: Michael Woelfel | April 25, 2008 2:25 PM

I'm the Quizach Haderach... ;)

... And I second Rick:

Go Moses!!!

I hope someone is taking snapshots of that poll so when it inevitably flips to be 95% Yes, 2% no, 3% everything else, we can prove with a timestamp that in fact the huge "support" is simply webmaster antics.

By BlueIndependent (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

"since any fool can talk about creationism." (mas528) #168 You actually got it backwards, it is written in the bible: "the fool has said in his heart there is no God".
-Michael Woelfel

What I like about this, is that you're quoting a book about God that insults people that don't believe in him.

It's analogous to Having "The Book of Michael Woelfel", and saying my book says people that don't love Michael Woelfel are stupid.

By John Wilder (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

It appears they have removed the poll within the past hour.

That was fun.

"Big Science" has nothing on "Big Gearjamming"

By Ryan F Stello (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

#258

It was up 10 minutes ago...try reloading.

"the fool has said in his heart there is no God".

Sounds like advice an ancient goat herder might consider valuable.

In the book of Michael X it reads "Michael Woelfel is a twit" So what's your point?

I can do this all day...

By Michael X (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

"the fool has said in his heart there is no God".

And the wise say it out loud.

Sounds like advice an ancient goat herder might consider valuable.

Alex, I'm thinking about stealing that (with permission) and using it whenever someone quotes the Bible, maybe loudly at the end of every church sermon. It's simple, and comes off innocent.

#258 -- It may just take a long time to load but it should come up eventually. I think it may be suffering from the Pharyngula Effect.

(No is almost at 85%!)

Poor Michael Waffle(head) hasn't even read his own favourite book. His post reverses mas528's comment to call mas528 a fool (however indirectly). Yet Jesus plainly says in Matthew 5:22: "but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire."

Of course, ol' JC himself is in danger of hellfire, for he calls people fools in Matthew 23:17, 19 and in Luke 11:40. Then again, he's God, so he can do whatever the hell he wants. (Of course, as a god, can he have really died? And if so, and he can come back as he's clearly said to have done, then what kind of a sacrifice did he actually make? And to whom was he paying off our debt of sin? Why wouldn't said Divine Bookie take a cashier's check? Why would he demand the death of a god, who by definition cannot be killed?)

Great book you've got there. Try reading it sometime, fuckhead.

Ben Stein was on the Craig Ferguson show last night.

They played a clip from Expelled and Craig implied that he would need to be stoned in order to watch the whole movie. It was fabulous.

Stein: "Don't fire people because they say the planets do stay in their orbits because of something other than Darwinism."

Yep. Brilliant.

More than 10:1 against when I voted; twice, once for me, once for my roommate at his request. Then I went to IMDB to rate the movie 1 star:

Votes:
592 at 25.4% 10 stars
119 at 5.1% 9 stars
94 at 4.0% 8 stars
47 at 2.0% 7 stars
12 at 0.5% 6 stars
16 at 0.7% 5 stars
15 at 0.6% 4 stars
35 at 1.5% 3 stars
72 at 3.1% 2 stars
1,330 at 57.0% 1 star

Interesting that the vast majority of votes are 1 star, but the movie has an overall 3.62 stars.

I'm sure that will improve.

The biggest surprise is that the poll was still up as late as midafternoon (when I voted 15 minutes ago).

Woohoo!

By Cyd Watts (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Stein: "Don't fire people because they say the planets do stay in their orbits because of something other than Darwinism."

[spit take]

I'm sorry, even now I'm not yet used to this level of burning stupid.

Poll is still there...we are at 7 thousand something NOs

Yes:583
No:7411

What flavor of memory hole will you be having today Mr. Stein.

How many scoops?

Would you like that server in a persecution complex cone or waffle?

OK, the Dune stuff is cracking me up - and that pic was fantastic. Fremen cat, there.

For some reason the poll won't show up at all on my second computer.

Heather @269

Please, please tell me you have the video.

If we're keeping track...

The results as of 1:56pm CST:

Yes (584 votes) 6.62%
No (7507 votes) 85.13%
Not sure (15 votes) 0.17%
What is it? (712 votes) 8.07%

They can't even attract the choir to their own site!

By defectiverobot (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Yay! poll successfully crashed

A bunch of internet toughs hijacked someone's web site.

Grats?

Dennis @ #266

By all means.

It is disingenuous for the poll to ask whether Intelligent Design be taught "in the education system" when the obvious implication is that it be taught as science because the proponents will unfairly characterize any "no" response as attack on openness rather than an attack on Intelligent Design as a scientific theory. The poll is designed to make their case no matter which choice is selected because it can easily be dishonestly represented.

Can somebody make an image with Stein in his schoolboy outfit with this quote: "Don't fire people because they say the planets do stay in their orbits because of something other than Darwinism"? (I can't because I've got some douche project at work this afternoon.)

This needs to be disseminated, as fast and as far as possible. People need to hear this. People need to read this. People need to know that it's this kind of discourse the IDiots want to reduce science to.

at 2:04 p.m. in Minnesota, "no" is over 85% of the vote! And it wouldn't let me vote again.... will go to the other computer and vote again there, for my husband

By dieselrain (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

A bunch of internet toughs hijacked someone's web site.

--What-- got hijacked?

will go to the other computer and vote again there, for my husband

Doing the same now, for my wife :)

Brownian awesome idea.....I wonder if anyone has a link to that appearance on Ferguson's show last night? I'm sure there are a tons of other gems from Stein's pie-hole. I saw a video of him on some creationist TV show where he said much the same thing: That he didn't like "Darwinism" because it couldn't explain how life started to crawl, or why the planets move, or how galaxies are created. Nope, still not used to the idiocy.

By jetmags73 (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

"Ok we're worse?"

Bonk!

Well said chimp.

@269
Thanks, I just spit water all over my keyboard. The stupid...well, you know.

By longsmith (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

@ 282:

How was that site hijacked?
Which "internet toughs" did the hijacking?
How was answering that poll wrong?
What illegal deed was done?
What subversive dishonest tactic?

I await your inevtitably creobot-biased answers to these questions.

By BlueIndependent (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

BlueIndependent (#255):

I hope someone is taking snapshots of that poll so when it inevitably flips to be 95% Yes, 2% no, 3% everything else, we can prove with a timestamp that in fact the huge "support" is simply webmaster antics.

Snapshot taken.

will go to the other computer and vote again there, for my husband

Now it's time to break out my work computer :))

At 2:00PM Central time it was:

Yes - 587
No - 7597
Don't Know - 15
What? - 712

At 2:15

Yes - 593
No - 8061
Don't Know - 16
What? - 728

Doesn't look like they've noticed yet...

I'll try on my blackberry.

From #269 I believe..."Ben Stein was on the Craig Ferguson show last night.

They played a clip from Expelled and Craig implied that he would need to be stoned in order to watch the whole movie. It was fabulous.

Stein: "Don't fire people because they say the planets do stay in their orbits because of something other than Darwinism.""

I don't know, maybe Mr Stein can expalin for us how the Begats in Genisis explain the 10 commandments.

NO = 85.80% @ 8085 votes. Happy to do my very small part.
Love it.
D.

@#297 A. Hermit:

Yes - 593
No - 8061
Don't Know - 16
What? - 728

Update: at 2:23 CT it is:
Yes - 595
No - 8407
Don't Know - 16
What? - 729

There's something enormously entertaining about tracking this....

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Can somebody make an image with Stein in his schoolboy outfit with this quote: "Don't fire people because they say the planets do stay in their orbits because of something other than Darwinism"? (I can't because I've got some douche project at work this afternoon.)

It's quick and dirty but.

Here you go

"There's something enormously entertaining about tracking this...."

Posted by: Etha Williams

Yes there is; it's rather childish, I suppose, but my motto is "We're only young once, but we can be immature forever..." ;-)

Classic. This is just classic. Nice graphic chimp.

I captured a screenshot at 2:21 cdt with a 14 to 1 no lead over yes. I am keeping this one on my 'puter and using it for future anti-ID LTE.

When the comments reach #666 - what happens to this blog?

The poll is designed to make their case no matter which choice is selected because it can easily be dishonestly represented.

*bing*

However, that's exists as a problem with just about any poll you can imagine.

There's a lesson in there...

I wonder if the Expelled bunch is doing something similar to the movie rating sites. Most of the favorable reviews on Fandango have been made by brand new users, and it is their first review.

"Brownian awesome idea.....I wonder if anyone has a link to that appearance on Ferguson's show last night?"

Yea, like this is one of the seminal arguments they use and it's so obviously wrong it is funny.

Well maybe not seminal but just another brick in the wall.

we atheists secretly worship Satan

I thought all atheists worshiped the flying spaghetti monster?!

*sigh*

far be it from me to tell you what fictional deities to direct your fawning to, but with global warming raising sea level, surely you REALLY mean to worship Dagon in the end, right?

#245 Rick Schauer

That is probably a good point. I probably stand corrected.

Do you think the theory of Intelligent Design should be taught in our education system?

Yes (600 votes) 5.92%
No (8794 votes) 86.73%

:D

By Tim Wilson (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

I see no poll anywhere.

it's rather childish, I suppose, but my motto is "We're only young once, but we can be immature forever..." ;-)

I feel kinda like Kent Dorfman leaping off the streets of Faber yelling "oh boy is this great!"

Yes (600 votes) - 5.92%
No (8785 votes) - 86.72%
Not sure (16 votes) - 0.16%
What is it? (729 votes) - 7.20%

Hah! :D

Thanks, Rev. BigDumbChimp. Mind if I copy it and put it on my blog? Credit to you of course.

Now, if only I can finish this project and get back to blogging.

If giving the unwanted answer in a stupid poll is wrong, I don't want to be right.

Just voted. This is hilarious. And the commenters there are scary...I didn't think people that intense still existed.

In the little bit of time (maybe 5 minutes)that I watched-and voted- the totals went from

NO 8838 86.80 %
Yes 599 5.89% to

No 9024 87.00%
Yes 603 5.81%

YAY!

Holy crap!
Just checked... 9155 'No' votes!
Phyrangulites rock!

By gramomster (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

I voted, got it up yo 10666. Must be my aura.

By Ken Mareld (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

#239 said: "Only math hasn't been attacked by you boobs."

Hate to be the one to break this to you, but among many fundamentalists, set theory is considered to contradict free will and is thus removed from Christian Math books. Plus, this whole bit about one being three and three being one makes even ballancing a checkbook damn near impossible.

I can see one problem in voting "What is it?" in this poll:

The creos will spin these votes into "Yes" votes, on the ASSumption that anyone who doesn't know what the ToID is MUST have been prevented from even hearing about it by the Evil Darwinist Big Science Conspiracy(TM).

Of course voting WTFII is a logical choice, since the DI has never defined what their "Theory" (in the vernacular sense, not the Scientific) really is.

By Blaidd Drwg (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Yahoo movies is starting to fill with bad reviews (but it's still a B!), and at Rotten Tomaotes it inched down from 53% to 52%.... come on, guys! :-D

if they are smart, they edit the poll and switch "yes" and "no"

By snob-student (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Very nice! Over 87% voted no. Damn right it should be too. Does anyone have a Myspace account to counter all those comments, or are they moderated?

For all those excited about this, I feel I should point out that the poll is actively being stuffed at the moment, and there's no way that the vote totals are even remotely legit. But yeah, it's still fun. ;^)

Those who know their HTTP-fu will have noticed that the URL that the poll loads when you vote can be accessed repeatedly, and increases the count every time.

Based on the current voting rate, the equilibrium solution is approximately

Yes: 1%
No: 98.2%
Not sure: 0.6%
What is it?: 0.2%

Rapidly closing on 10K.

I love the Evul Darwinist Conspiracy. It's so...devilish.

@ #326,

If they were smart we wouldn't be posting in this thread :P

In any case, they could switch "no" to "yes", then the current "I'm not sure" to "no". That way, 87% do believe ID should be taught in schools and 0.23% do not believe that.

It's clever..

ABOUT EXPELLED

Do you believe in evolution? Have you ever heard of the theory of Intelligent Design (ID)? Is it difficult for you to believe that we developed through random chance and simply may be "lucky mud"?

Yes! Yes! Sign me up! The argument from personal incredulity always works on me, because there are just so many things I can't wrap my mind around!

Besides, "Lucky Mud" would be an excellent name for an old-timey band, if not a rock group.

By noncarborundum (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Haha, holy crap it was a slaughter when I checked it out. Over 80% no when I cast my vote.

This was an excellent example of intelligant pwnage!

@#307 Ichthyic:

The poll is designed to make their case no matter which choice is selected because it can easily be dishonestly represented.

*bing*

However, that's exists as a problem with just about any poll you can imagine.

"There are 3 kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
~Benjamin Disraeli, popularized by Mark Twain

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

At 3:12 CT:

Yes: 615
No: 100054
Not sure: 27
WTF?! 731

I do so enjoy this admittedly immature poll tracking. I feel a bit like a child on Christmas day.

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Oops...screwed up the No number (wrote 100054 instead of 10054...hey, I can dream).

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

I'm still reeling from the Craig Ferguson quote.

I guess the fact that big science hasn't gassed Stein for being so fucking unbelievably stupid is proof that evolutionists aren't Nazis.

I do think we should force him to wear an "I'm With Stupid " T-shirt.

I don't think that they can change the poll results. It's on PollDaddy.com

All they did was set it up. They can close the poll and stop displaying the results, but I don't think PollDaddy let's users alter the votes.

Passed 10,000 at 3:15 PM Central (88.13% "No", 5.32% "Yes")

Fear not! No's are now over 11K and Yes's are still at 615.

By David Lockwood (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Sing along! Ooooo, what a lucky mud he was!

J. D.

By J D. Mack (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

#324 - I went to Yahoo movies, but despite rating it and posting a review, the number of ratings didn't change (2561). Is it simply ignoring ratings?

By Epinephrine (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

LOL Now only a little more than 5% say yes. Hilarious.

#345

I think it takes a while to refresh its count - I see new reviews coming up if you arrange them by "most recent." Check it again in a while...and good job!

Here's the latest:

Yes (618 votes) 5.17%
No (10565 votes) 88.45%
Not sure (30 votes) 0.25%
What is it? (732 votes) 6.13%

Total Votes:11945

The poll doesn't reflect societys views if you crash it

I hadn't seen that Hovind video before, so I watched about 10 minutes of it and now I feel like I need a long hot shower, preferably one lasting several days. Lies, damned lies and vaccinations-are-a-Satanic-plot-to-reduce-the-population (and cause autism).

I really don't like to sling words like "evil" around, but if anyone deserves a slot on Lewis Black's "Root of All Evil", it's Hovind for this video.

By noncarborundum (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! There are people here that don't know about or haven't seen Hovind?

Man what a few months in jail will do to someone's notoriety.

tsk tsk

@#349 Ian --

An internet poll really never reflect's "society's" views. If you want that, you need an unbiased, random sampling, blocked for possible confounding variables. (And even then, the poll is often interpreted in all sorts of odd ways....)

With any internet poll, there are a ton of things interfering with its ability to reflect "society's" views. The first factor simply being ownership of a computer and easy access to the internet -- hardly a universal. The next, being whether you come across the page. Before PZ posted this, the vast majority of people who would come across the page would be creationists and creationist-sympathizers who wanted to visit the Expelled myspace page, plus a few people who went to the page out of a masochistic desire to view real-life IDiocy at work. After PZ posted the link, overwhelmingly the page was visited by people who wanted to oppose real-life IDiocy at work.

It's not skewing the poll if it's already skewed -- it's just changing the skew. If you can think of a way to make internet polls truely reflect society's views, please let us know. I'm sure statisticians would be thrilled to learn about it.

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

The poll doesn't reflect societys views if you crash it

No online poll will ever reflect society's views. There will always be selection bias. Previously, this poll would have been most visible to Expelled's audience, giving it a pro-ID bias. Further, opt in polls tend to motivate those who want to change the status quo more than those who want to preserve it, again giving this poll a pro-ID bias.

It's that online polls are inherently crap that causes people like PZ to sabotage them.

11035 No: 625 Yes

By Tom G(eologist) (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

> The poll doesn't reflect societys views if you crash it
> Posted by: Ian | April 25, 2008 4:30 PM

Religiots can crash their own poll, can't they? There's supposedly more of them too, so how come the current result is 88.94% NO?

I just found this disturbing video posted by someone on the Expelled myspace page:

Is that the one where the guy with the mask, speaking the English dialect Moronic, issues a fatwa and declares a Jihad on evolutionary biologists.

That is just so 2007. Been there, done that.

#184 "Not everyone who believes in ID is an uneducated idiot."

True - a small proportion are educated idiots.

By Nick Gotts (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

My 10 year old saw me voting looking at this and wondered what it was about. I explained about the ID poll and what ID was. She said no, she didn't want to learn that at all, it wasn't science (her favorite subject). I love her!

Dawkin's devils are voting too. I snooped in and someone has come up with the term Homo creotardus fucktardus. Don't you go to hell for speaking bastard latin?

By Patricia C. (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Kirk @358

Awwww.... a future scientist, or at least a future well-educated citizen!

Kirk @ #358:

Nice work with the kid. Keep it up. In fact, have some more and apply the same parenting methodology.

By Thomas S. Howard (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

There are people here that don't know about or haven't seen Hovind?

Not me, I just hadn't seen that particular video. I had no brief for Hovind before, but for some reason this video strikes me as one long, concentrated dose of nasty that trumps everything else of Hovind's I've ever seen. (Can doses "trump"? Probably not.) Call me a naïf if you must.

By noncarborundum (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

heh

13K No...
4/25/8 3:50 CMT

By obvioustroll (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

If you've followed any number of threads on this blog, you'll know that many of the posters here have tried (with little success) to engage creationists in civilized discourse. Unfortunately, it's impossible to do this on Expelled's myspace page because they censor the comments. So instead of being able to engage in civilized discourse, all we can do is put our votes in at the poll. And how voting in an open internet poll is 'uncivilized' is a bit beyond me...creationist blogs are free to put up posts encouraging their readers to do the same. This is just an expression of public opinion. Any duplicate voting is simply something that comes with the territory when it comes to internet polls. I'm sure people on both sides are doing it.

Yes: 630 votes (4.97%)
No: 11,385 votes (89.01%)
Not sure: 30 votes (0.23%)
What it is? 745 votes (5.82%)

SFX = "metal crushing, glass shattering, agonized screaming"
/SFX

By themadlolscientist (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Rev. Big Dumb Chimp...
Yes, it is true. I only just discovered this scumbag, but I do have a couple of reasonable excuses:
1. I'm still new to this, only been actively interested/aware of the sceptical movement since November.
2. I'm only 18. I don't know if this is an acceptable excuse or not, but I shall use it anyway.
3. I live in Wales. We don't get many Hovind or Popoff types here, so we don't get to hear much about them.

The poll does reflect society's views.

For a given value of "society".

:-)

In this case, society = "people who spend a fair amount of time on the internet AND who care enough about the evo/ID conflict to be aware of a poll like this"

In that context, the results are not totally unmeaningful. IMHO.

Over 12,000 "no" votes, for 89.6%.

I can see him thinking "Wow, look at that traffic spike, we might suck in theaters, but the DVD will sell great if we're generating that much traffic" ;)

11919 No / 636 Yes at last count, or just under 19:1.
I did not attempt to vote twice (that would be wrong). But when I checked the results, I was thanked and informed that my vote had already been counted -- and so, presumably, don't try any funny stuff. Interesting to me was the implication that someone on the Expelled team is slightly smarter than David Horowitz, who once managed to elect Michael Bérubé "America's Worst Professor" by a margin greater than his website's total pageviews since the beginning of time.
Or maybe the slightly smarter person is just someone at MySpace.

Or, since this post has garnered only 360-some comments so far (not 12,000), maybe I just don't know everything that's going on.

Nobody click this link, ok? Or if you must, then only once. Because you wouldn't want to cheat, would you?

Oh, and you definitely wouldn't want to put that link as the source URL in an image tag on a webpage that gets loaded often...

By VoteEarlyAndOften (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Done. Sometimes I feel sort of bad for "conspiring" with my fellow godless liberal naturalists like this, but then I remember the intelligent design movement.

The most enjoyable vote I've had for a while. Hope the results give coniption fits to the IDiots.

By Roger Scott (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

When did they come up with a *theory* of Intelligent Design?

By waywardcats (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

I'm impressed by how powerful PZ is.

In favor of forcing science teachers to teach magic: 644 votes 4.20%

Against magic: 13,915 votes 90.69%

What is magic? 751 votes 4.89%

Not sure about magic: 34 votes 0.22%

Unfortunatly, they're just going to cry foul and point to it as yet another example of how their views are EXPELLED!

By Brendan S (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Sometimes I feel sort of bad for "conspiring" with my fellow godless liberal naturalists like this, but then I remember the intelligent design movement.

I know the feeling. This poll is probably the closest thing anyone associated with ID has gotten to doing actual research, and here we've gone and innoculated their Staphylococcus plate with P. chrysogenum, metaphorically speaking.

I wonder if they'll have the presence of mind to stop and investigate the growth of intelligence, or whether they'll just dump it all in the lysol of their belief.

Hey, can we stop referring to ID as 'magic?' I'm a professional magician and I have more integrity then that! *SMILE*

A great effort on the part of sane people and it is still going. When will they notice? When will technical difficulties cause the poll to be taken down?

By Roger Scott (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Many people have commented on the pollsters switching the question/ results/ 're-framing' however this site already documents what really happened. Xian-annigans can be immediately EXPOSED.

14188 90% voted NO
646 4.14% voted yes yhooo smack down to Mark
P.Z. is truly god let us bow down and worship him :)

By Troy Lacefield (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Currently at 22:1, and slightly more people didn't know what it was than wanted it taught in public schools. That's gonna leave a bruise in the morning.

How would one go about 'crashing' a web poll that is open to the public?

Ballot cast, PZ!

Yes: 638
No: 14,437

No: 14,768
Yes: 647

By Michael Jackson (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Woohoo 15000+ and climbing, giggle.

By John Phillips, FCD (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Another point: With more than an order of magnitude lead in negative to affirmative votes, yet with all comments in the affirmative, any reasonably intelligent and honest person would notice the censorship. No honesty allowed.

I have been sitting at my computer all day trying to complete a final paper and close out my semester. Watching the poll and the discussion has not helped me at all. It is funny as hell, though. Way to go PZ et. al.

this is the graph as of now:

yes :-
Maybe :
What is it?:--
No :-------------------------------------------------

The comments from the MySpace friends down the side were depressing. Why is it Xians seem to just positively love to revel in their ignorance, and more shout it out to the world every chance they get? Shouldn't the fact their god wants them to be stupid be a pretty good argument against him existing? Ignorance and stupidity only serve the clergy that has brainwashed them.

No: 15,345
Yes: 648

As an atheist I don't worship Satan....but Guinness and chicken vindaloo....the personified god of which I worship at the holy time of friday night.
When I checked we where at about 14000 NO's, keep 'em coming..yup now 1500...rock on for the sane people, even if we don't rule the world.

Yes (648 votes)
No (15281 votes)

Proof of the massive scientific conspiracy to silence dissenting voices:/

#392: "... any reasonably intelligent and honest person would notice the censorship."

What they do is worse than censorship. They actually modify pro-science comments. I was one of their victims. Typical creationist scum.

Just popped back to see how we're doing.

Ah Guinness! #398 now there's a cause worth fighting for!

Hey Ian, are you suggesting we should teach kids based on a poll?

Or should we teach what the evidence shows?

I have been doing this a long time, here and there, and I have got to tell you, without exception, people who don't 'believe' evolution don't understand it. Some of it is clearly willful misunderstanding, some of it is the failure of our current education where teachers feel they have to pussyfoot around intolerant religions.

I am sure most of the folk here will agree with me: people who understand what evolution means and don't have religious blinders on don't come up with the nonsense seen in Expelled or the Hovind videos or any of the other stupidity thats been around these last few years.

By Britomart (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

GDTRFB...

Wheee! We're currently up to 97+% saying "NO" to ID. I love it. :)

GDTRFB...

did they just cry "UNCLE"?... they're not showing the results

i don't know if voting in this poll was worth the glimpse at the comment section next to it.

"Splitters!"

I take offense to that ya filthy wanker!

By Judean People'… (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Yes (654 votes) 2.95%
No (20552 votes) 92.76%

Pardon the expression, but holy crap. I checked back here an hour ago and it was under 9000 votes. Now it's well over double that! Nice work people.

By BlueIndependent (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

The 20,000 NO's barrier has been breached! And "What is it?" is still ahead of "Yes" by a couple hundred votes.

No doubt the creationists (I mean, cDesign Propentists) will spin this as proof that PZ is a false god, worshipped by the blinded darwinist masses, and that evilutionists can be easily gathered to lash out against True Science!

Current status of poll @ 1721 hours CST:

Thank you for voting!
Yes (652 votes) 3.29%
No (18248 votes) 91.95%
Not sure (41 votes) 0.21%
What is it? (905 votes) 4.56%

Total Votes:19845

I'm actually laughing that "What is it?" has gained more votes than "Not sure" and "Yes" combined! Of course, I voted while I was there - against cretinism.

21000+ this is fun :)

By John Phillips, FCD (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

#409, they're still showing the results.

yes 654 votes 2.91%

no 20,900 votes 92.86%

Gahhh... check out some of the reviews at Yahoo movies.

"Its[sic] Nice to be Hated By The Right People"

"A very intelligent movie"

"Exposed - Elite Fascism in scientific community"

"Informative and entertaining"

Just got home from work and went over and voted no. Currently, it's 654 Yes (2.94%), 20638 No (92.76%), 51 Not Sure (0.23%), and 905 What is it? (4.07%) Awesome, Yes votes aren't even beating the what is it option. We're killing this thing!

Over 22,000 and cimbing. Time for our Northern Hemisphere peoples to go to bed and tag team with us Antipodeans for a fun Saturday of poll smashing. You can have it back in about 12 hours.

Atheists roolz the intertoobz.

By Bride of Shrek (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

For want of a better word, that poll just got OWNED!

Every time I vote no, the total number of "no"s goes up by a good 50 or so! The internet is out in force on this one...

By Will Davies (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

almost 23 thousnd for NO now, almost Seven hundred YES. Nine hundred for WHAT? We kick ass.

Just a reminder not to click on this link or place it in any image tags or iframes...

Oh, and the yes votes are about to hit 666. :^D

By VoteEarlyAndOften (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Yes = 659
No = 23,347

Just for fun I refreshed the results after about 10 seconds:

Yes = 660
No = 23,509

LOL

24,000 votes for No :)

By Epinephrine (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Blake Stacey (#22) said: "Incidentally, someone with a MySpace account should post a note like the following:"

I have a MySpace account. Unfortunately, on MySpace, you have to be someone's friend in order to post a comment on their page...

...and I'll be damned first!

At least one "NO" vote every second.

24,770 votes against pseudoscience.

The current poll makes the Rotten Tomatoes critics rating look like Mt. Everest.

Keep metaphorically kicking these lying assholes.

By Sioux Laris (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Will, one vote per person is the way to go.

By Roger Scott (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

I can't really read the tiny font size used, but it looks to me as c.24000 "no" to c.600 "yes" (and c.900 WTF?). With a bit of hackery on my locally-cached copy, I've eliminated the spurious garbage on the site and now see only the poll, allowing me to vote at a rate of at least one vote per second. (It may be necessary to not accept cookie monsters to allow multiple votes from the same machine / IP?) Next step is to try and figure out how to automate the voting process...

The poll question is stupid and illustrates exactly the kind of black and white narrow-minded perspective that dominates public discourse in America.

It is actually very import to discuss the Intelligent Design movement - in a social studies or American history class. The ID movement is a significant cultural phenomenon. Proponents of ID are attempting to influence national education policy decisions that will have a lasting impact on the vigor of our society and our ability to remain competitive internationally.

I'm sure everyone understands that the question implicitly meant to ask if ID should be taught as a theory in science curricula. Of course the answer to that question would be no, since ID is not a scientific theory, and therefore not an appropriate topic to teach in a science class (unless you're talking about "Social Science").

So I refuse to vote on the stupid question.

By Brian Hawthorne (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

@#382 Brownian, OM --

This poll is probably the closest thing anyone associated with ID has gotten to doing actual research, and here we've gone and innoculated their Staphylococcus plate with P. chrysogenum, metaphorically speaking.

Best. Science. Metaphor. Ever.

You win.

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Hey, after I voted, it's 26,416 (94%) No!

Pretty impressive turn around since this morning! This is fun.

blf @ 430: You might be right about the cookies, but it's easy to automate since you just need to load this link. If you know how to use a shell, and have wget installed, it's pretty easy. (and wget doesn't save cookies, by default)

By VoteEarlyAndOften (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Voted.
Even "What is it?" is beating the Yes votes.
¡Bwahahahaa!

By «bønez_brigade» (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

666 Yes votes! What could this mean?

(Oh, and 27189 No votes). A landslide victory)

Roy

re: comment #366 by Yutube --

This entire comment is taken verbatim from my comment #217 on this thread. While I'm somewhat flattered that someone would apparently want to reiterate my points word-for-word, I just want to clarify that I didn't intentionally double post this...and I am curious about Yutube's intent in reposting it.

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

666 WAS MINE.
Ihope it scares the fundies

VoteEarlyAndOften@434: Yep, that seems to be doing it--lots of "No" votes (over 28000 now!). (I cannot recall wget(1)'s defaults, and in any case, disable cookie monsters by reflex....)

You guys who are voting multiple times are complete fucking idiots. Great way to complain about a movie that distorts and manipulates the evidence. And it's so blatant they'll know immediately they've been hacked.

When the Expelled guys notice that PZ has linked to their site they will come here and read your idiotic gloating and can say how their objective poll was hacked by PZ Meyers' supporters.

You guys are dumber than the people you are hacking. This will finish up reflecting badly on PZ and everyone who posts here.

What the hell do think it proves? Grow a fucking brain you idiots.

I bet the Expelled' people will use the 94% 'no' vote to say it proves their point that no one will allow Creationism to be taught...a win/win type of poll, I'd say.
Betcha!

By John Tate (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Dyak:

When logic and reasoning fail, ridicule is really the best last resort. So, blow me.

By Richard Wolford (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Posted by: dyak | April 25, 2008 7:24 PM

Sod off ya humorless git.

By Popular Front … (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

dyak

Its spelt Myers not Meyers. If you're going to abuse people you should probably make sure you've got the spelling correct, otherwise you just look like a complete dill.

By Bride of Shrek (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

This is hilarious, and amazing. About two weeks ago I tried to get people at the Skeptics Guide to the Universe listeners forum to go vote...we added maybe 50 'no' votes. I stated something like: if we could get the pharyngulites to vote, then we'd be set...

"If everyone goes over there and votes "no", it will raise Mark Mathis's blood pressure a few points."

Few points? Heh, I think this is going to make him stroke out.

By Bride of Shrek (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

94.73%

We don't have to be fair, we aren't taking it seriously.

Well done for correcting me. I wasn't insulting PZ Myers, though.

The thing is the hacking is completely obvious - the numbers are way too high. They will certainly be reading all the comments here and will read you guys gloating about it.

It's just dumb.

hol-e mol-e!! we are slaughtering them! i am so impressed. nice job it's about 30000 to 600ish...kick ass!

By bio teacher (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Dyak # 442

Thanks so much for the tacit admission that the POS flick "Expelled" distorts & manipulates evidence. Actually I wouldn't even grant it that, since it does not provide any evidence at all in support of intelligent design.

And if their "little" poll is evidence of anything, it's that their own followers cannot even support them. At least we didn't compare Expelled assholes to Nazis.

By jetmags73 (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Wow, what a good morning present from PZ! Is anyone saving screen shots as the numbers increase? This is hilarious.

But I also like the idea to go to places that matter more, like IMDB.

They block myspace at work so I just was able to vote. I love it. There are more "what is it" than "yes" answers. I'm a little surprised it's still up.

there are more people who don't know what it is than have voted in favor of the "theory" of ID....teehee...makes me giggle!

By bio teacher (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

@#443 John Tate --

I bet the Expelled' people will use the 94% 'no' vote to say it proves their point that no one will allow Creationism to be taught...a win/win type of poll, I'd say.

You're completely right. That is how they'll spin it. I had a feeling they'd come up with some bizarre way to twist the statistics, but couldn't for the life of me think of how to put a positive spin on a vast majority answering "no"...but you came up with it. Bravo.

By Etha Williams (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

#252 sidelined et dyak
Get a grip...it's a freakin myspace poll! Flectere si nequeo superos, Achaeronta movebo.

By Rick Schauer (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

They are being crushed now...something like 32,000 don't teach it. 1,000 teach it.

Muwahahaha...

One more vote for "No".

By Nick Sullivan (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Um, Dyak, you do realize this blog gets about 60,000 hits a day, and chances are that means 60,000 different IP addresses meaning a jump of 20,000+ negative votes on the poll only represents about a third of the possible people going over there to vote. I suspect it will get much more one sided yet, especially once the Digg crowd gets in on this, a few people voting more than once won't have much of an impact, and chances are the people voting yes are doing it to.

I think we should stop now. It's starting to look suspicious.

By Mike Higginbottom (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Dyak, who cares, whatever we did they would try to spin it in some obscene way so we are just having some fun. Unless that is, you believe that an open internet poll has some validity in the real world. Get a life, better still, join in and have some fun yourself. The only thing us lot are doing is proving we can have some fun. The fact that it screws with their poll is just a bonus, irrespective of how they spin it as honesty has never been the IDiots strongest suit anyway.

By John Phillips, FCD (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

HEY, THIS IS NOT COOL, YOU GUYS!

We were not invited to this poll. This is a private poll. EVERYONE OUT OF THE POLL!

By OctoberMermaid (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Octobermermaid, but will they let Dawkins vote :)

By John Phillips, FCD (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

#462

Mike,

Perhaps you're right, although at 95.24% it's still well below the percentage of scientists who accept evolution.

Get to those IMdB and Yahoo ratings/reviews!

Haha. Democracy works!

Does it matter if we cheat? This movie is such a bomb, its fractally wrong.

Those of you who are worried about us getting caught, get real, we have already had a few creobots posting up thread so they are already aware of what we are doing. So what, just have some fun and giggles.

By John Phillips, FCD (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Yes - 677
No - 33908

LOL!!!

I for one am not giving up until they pay a ransom of ONE MILLION DOLLARS. Oh sorry, very 60's of me, better make that ONE TRILLION DOLLARS.

By Bride of Shrek (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

#466

Now _that's_ funny. It doesn't matter how ridiculously we fuck with their stupid little poll, we've still not made it representative of the truth of the situation. The irony of this had escaped me up to now. Genius.

By Mike Higginbottom (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Anon, #393
Huge code, you are Mighty!

-...looking for passwords to servers...-

By Rick Schauer (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

I'm also of the oninion that, given the resounding nature of the "no" vote that it should renamed to more accurately reflect the real feelings of the NO voters. I suggest "Fuck No" or "In Your Fucking Dreams" as worthy alternatives.

By Bride of Shrek (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Quote: #456, bio teacher said:
there are more people who don't know what it is than have voted in favor of the "theory" of ID....teehee...makes me giggle!

--------
That is brilliant.

EVERYONE: start voting "I dont know what it is." We already got the GOLD, now let's get the SILVER.

The IMDB poll is quite interesting:
25.8% 10 points
56.6% 1
The statistics are a bit refined:
males under 18: 5.7
females under 18: 8.0 (but only 20 votes of 2500...)
males 18-29: 3.0
females 18-29: 5.4

It is just an internet vote and not a real statistic but still interesting...go vote at IMDB!

Yes-677

No-35,121

Not sure-60

What is it?-918

This could result in extreme hypertension.

By paragwinn (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

currently
1.84% yes
95.51% no
0.16% not sure
2.49% what is it?

So yes is even losing out badly to "huh?"

At this rate we could have more posts in this thread than they have yes votes :)

By John Phillips, FCD (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Just voted again...this time from home IP.

Yes (681 votes) vs No (36253 votes)!

-Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc.-

By Rick Schauer (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

I think you can get a few votes per IP address, as long as you clear yoru cookies. Go back and vote "What is it?" This is a little more subtle and perhap even more grating to the producers than a bunch of no votes.

+35000 yes
HWA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
This is just incredible and funny.

Isn't it wonderful what we can achieve when we all work together?
36,723 No
918 What is it?
682 Yes
*applause* *tears*

It would be incredibly funny for yes to come a distant third to "what is it?"

80% NO
19.5% WHAT IS IT
.5% YES

That's would be too funny.

BTW, anybody who is using the polldaddy link supplied up thread, if you want to easily change voting from NO to What Is It then I couldn't possibly suggest that you change 1276775 to 1276777 in the address bar nor could I suggest using the link below instead :) After all it would be cheating, wouldn't it?

http://www.polldaddy.com/pollVoteFlash.aspx?%3Canswer%20poll_id=%222565…

By John Phillips, FCD (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Just voted again before I head off to bed at 1-54am BST.
As this has no relevance whatever to what is taught in the schools in Wales it gives me even more pleasure to tell you I have managed to vote 5 'no's' and 5 'What is it' over the last 2 hours.

Guys:

Expelled is number TWO at Fandango under the "Top 10 Fan Rated" section. This cannot stand.

Done.

It is now at 686 for 'Yes' and 38,332 for 'No'.

Hehehehehe...

By Hoovenson Haw (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Makes sense to comment on Yahoo and IMDB( done !!!),and I reckon we have proven our point by now on this private poll....

@John Philipps No 489 : What sort of an evil hacker are you lol ? Very impressed...

The creobots were disappointing today,it looked promising for a while there...:-)

I voted twice, just so I could observe the progress of the vote, but realising that voting twice is unfair, my second vote was a 'yes' to cancell out the previous 'no'. Now I need to go and register my 'no' vote. And who says atheists are not moral!

Even if each evil 'no' voter had voted 8 times (which is extremely unlikely) and they were discounted, and not a single 'yes' voter voted more than once(even more unlikely) we're STILL beating the arse off them!

By John Tate (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

Voting at IMDB helps, and here's another one:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=expelled.htm

Vote at Box Office Mojo where the movie has twice as many A ratings as F ratings. We're able to keep the statistical average at B because of all the F grades, however we need some more help over there.

(Note: You may have to register to vote.)

38,000 for "No".

FLAWLESS VICTORY.

By Conor Burke (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink

John. It's a web poll. NO need to be so hard on yourself.

I'm sure the IDists are trying to cancel out as many NOs as they can with multiple votes.

Just stopped by Fandango to put my two cents in. Rated it "oh no." This is fun. Everytime I look at the poll numbers I pee a little bit.

Clinteas, thanks, but I can only take a little of the credit. The real work was done by those who posted the original polldaddy link. All I did was change the answer code from 'No' to 'What is it'.

By John Phillips, FCD (not verified) on 25 Apr 2008 #permalink