It's quite clear what the purpose of Ben Stein's Expelled movie is — notice what they've been doing with it. They've been shopping it around at screenings that are filtered to keep knowledgeable people out; they're planning to pay students to attend; they're relying on the Big Lie to promote the movie; and of course, they had to misrepresent themselves to get interviews.
But now they've really done it: they are going to give Florida legislators, sponsored by a representative who has filed one of those bogus "academic freedom" bills, a special, private screening of the movie. None of the critics know what is in it, so this amounts to presenting a slick, prepackaged collection of lies to legislators while denying anyone any opportunity to rebut. Ben Stein should be ashamed of himself; can you think of any similar plan to generate public and political action against a group by spreading blatant lies that they were conspiring to commit horrible acts? Protocols of the Elders of Zion, anyone?
If the producers of Expelled are so confident that they can make a strong case of conspiracy against scientists, then before they start showing this to uninformed politicians, they ought to screen it before scientists and historians and philosophers of science, who will be able to judge it on its merits. Let's see them show it to a group picked by NCSE, for instance, who would then be able to fairly argue against it. As it is, the cowards of Expelled are doing their best to keep critics in the dark about its content.
There's another revelation in this sordid Florida affair. Who else is sponsoring this screening of the movie? An organization called the Challenger Learning Center of Tallahassee. The place looks wonderful on the web: it's a hands-on science museum with children's programs, an IMAX theater, a planetarium, etc., with a focus on engineering and aerospace, and it's an arm of Florida State University and Florida A&M. Here's their mission statement:
The Center is the K-12 outreach facility of the Florida A&M University - Florida State University College of Engineering and uses aerospace as a theme to foster long-term interest in math, science and technology; create positive learning experiences; and motivate students to pursue careers in these fields.
Sounds nice…but Mike O'Risal dug deeper. After all, why is an overtly pro-physical science organization like this assisting in an attack on the life sciences? It seems that none of the staff at the Challenger Center actually has any kind of degree in the sciences — the head of the planetarium has a P.E. degree, which brings to mind that common public school tactic of letting the football coach teach the science classes. These are people who are grossly unqualified to assess the merits of the movie, and at the very least they have allowed venal interests to override their mission of providing quality science education to the public.
Mike has a collection of email addresses associated with this debacle, including people at FSU, who are going to get tarred with this mess. Write to them! Let them know that an institution that is supposed to represent the university and is supposed to encourage more citizens to get a science education is being misused to do the opposite.
I've sent off email. One compromise I've suggested: if the screening goes ahead, they should insist that a group of university faculty be allowed to attend, and that those faculty should then be given equal time in a hearing with those same legislators to discuss any misrepresentations in the movie. They have to understand that Expelled is being used as a dishonest propaganda tool to foist a mislabeled "academic freedom" bill on them, one which will attempt to dictate the allowed views of university faculty on politics and evolution.
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In their efforts to "educate the educators", the publicists for Expelled sent out this week an e-mail containing a rave review of the movie. (There haven't been too many of those, have there?) It treats as a major revelation the statement by Dawkins by nothing ultimately prevents intelligence from creating new life (as humanity might be doing some day). Shocking! That's one of the stupidest claims. One of the diciest: that the views of evolutionists are presented "unedited." I really don't believe that. [Link]
Damn! Here's the actual link. [Link]
(Twice now I've created circular links while talking about Expelled. God must be angry with me!)
Just to be clear on this, people like Larry Abele and Joe Travis don't deserve any blame for this. I'm sure they weren't aware that Challenger was up to this sort of thing and I'm just about as sure they'll be opposed to it when they do find out.
I'm a Florida State alumnus, and I'm personally appalled that Challenger -- which is essentially a Florida State University/Florida A&M cooperative effort facility -- would pull this stunt. I think the universities themselves are going to have a big problem with this, as well they should. I hope that whomever is responsible for making the decision to show Stein's hit-piece gets sacked.
First it was lawyers who tried to adjudicate science education...now we have P.E. coaches. It's like being forced to watch Lee Strobel having sex in a hockey stadium.
My emails are off. Please let these educators know that the world is watching. Get to emailing and include your city/state.
PZ Myers continues, and Ben Stein CLEARLY demonstrates HIS IGNORANCE.
Yep, Mark, that Ben Stein is incredibly ignorant and does a really good job at demonstrating it. It's a good thing that there are people like PZ around continuing to point it out.
Knowing Florida, odds are that what you have is collusion by the Expelled crew and the legislators. By giving the legislators a special screening with all opposing views carefully prevented from being presented they give the legislators 'cover' for announcing how they were "convinced" by the film that there must be "balancing" views in the schools.
The reality is different. What you probably have is a 'love-in' of anti-evolution/pro-creationist legislators and the Expelled crew giving each other a platform to bash evolution and do precisely what they meant to do in the first place. Only with a thin covering veneer of having 'investigated' the issue.
Strangely enough there's some fake bittorrent links going around pretending to contain this movie.
Can't be that long until someone grabs it to make a copy and dump it on the net. I mean, i'm told there are sane Christians that would be glad if these jokers were exposed.
Atheists better start praying (just in case He's there) because that's the only chance they got.
PZ shouldn't worry, he'll be at the top of the pack after this movie. Dawkins is going down hard! He is AWFUL in it. He completely gives away the store - says life may have been designed and that we may be able to detect that it has been designed! (where have I heard that before?)
Please try and squash everyone and everything associated with this movie, it will reinforce the very point that the movie is trying to make.
Just checked out Mark Witt's "blog."
WTF?
Pray to which "He" again? Don't want to be wasting my time worshipping Zeus and his resurrected sun, sorry, son, when it's supposed to be Neptune.
All pseudosciences do the same thing: bypass the scientific system of review to go directly to the public, because the "experts" can't be trusted. Science has become too embroiled in politics, so it's up to the average person to use their common sense and reign in the ideologues and eccentrics who are out of touch with reality.
This is a major red flag indicator on pseudoscience. It's terribly flattering to the average person. You don't have to know that much to know that academics are wrong. You can do it with a high school education. Heck, a small child can see the problems.
After all, all our beliefs are "faith" -- you believe the sun will rise tomorrow, don't you? Faith. It levels out that crap about accumulated education, experience, and demonstration, and makes us all equal. Folks like that.
So, uh, "Me," how do you feel about the fact that Ben Stein thinks Jesus Christ was a liar and not the son of God at all but just another guy like everybody else? You were aware that Stein is an unbaptized Jew and doesn't think that the New Testament are God's word, correct?
Not that this has anything to do with Expelled, which is (supposedly) about evolutionary theories, not about religion. It's funny, though, how so many Creation-nits keep making it into a war between religion and irreligion. Your violence fantasies are particularly endearing, but very much in keeping with Stein's idiocy.
Pray to which "He" again? Don't want to be wasting my time worshipping Zeus and his resurrected sun, sorry, son, when it's supposed to be Neptune.
Only Bacchus shall receive my prayers. A bit too many last night, though. But still, even with all that lovely wine messing with my perceptions and killing of my liver and brain, I couldn't make myself as stupid as the EXPELLED *jazz hands* fans that show up with their creocrushes on Stein.
Oy, they hurt my head more than the wine. Save me Bacchus!
PZ, Thank you for keeping us informed of the tactics behind this farce of a documentary. I live in the heart of the Bible Belt and keep track of the deceptions involved in the film's marketing and content. I hope to disseminate them en masse to the locals. Your continued contributions will be of immense value.
"It's funny, though, how so many Creation-nits keep making it into a war between religion and irreligion."
And I'm sure they're thanking Dawkins, PZ, Dennet, Provine, Wilson and all the rest for agreeing with them.
Me #10 wrote:
How does that "give away the store" or anything else? OF COURSE life "may" have been designed, and OF COURSE we "may" be able to detect it. Nobody has argued otherwise except the materialist scientists in your head (probably the same straw-constructed atheists who insist that there is no possibility that any form of anything called God could in theory exist.)
The point is that we have NOT seen any necessity to conclude this from a scientific point of view. Any statement Dawkins makes to the effect that "of course I could be wrong" is simply how scientists must and always work. Science demands that you consider the possibility of being wrong -- and come up with a test that would demonstrate that.
So okay, Me. What would conclusively falsify Intelligent Design. You say it's a theory, set up a hypothetical. COULD you be wrong, and evolution happened? COULD you be wrong, and God does NOT exist and never has existed? Now -- tell us all what would or could happen that would force you to conclude both statements are correct, and you've been wrong the whole time.
Give us the test for God. Otherwise, admit you're a dogmatist who can't make an error, or find out that they have, by any method or evidence whatsoever.
Heathen!
It's Fuflun, not Bacchus, prepare to suffer for your insolence!
Speaking of Ben Stein...
Late last summer, I caught Stein on a financial talking-heads show waxing poetic about how the subprime crisis had been overblown, and how Citigroup, Merrill-Lynch, etc.. were extremely undervalued. Jump in with both feet, Stein said. These were investment bargains!
At the time, Citigroup was trading around $47 per share. Merrill-Lynch was trading at about $75/share.
As of the close of business yesterday, Citigroup was $20.91. Merrill-Lynch closed at $45.19.
I can only hope that lots of obnoxious religious fundamentalists out there consider Stein's financial expertise to be on par with his expertise in the biological sciences. If so, they'll soon be bankrupting themselves out of existence.
How interesting!
I followed a link left by Glen Davidson on here the other day. It is to a site that has reviewed the Expelled movie (praising it, unfortunately). Nick Matzke turned up and left a message, and there were the usual ignoramuses spewing up all over the comments section.
I have just taken another look at it and Caroline Crocker and Casey Luskin have both now left messages on the site.
This is the message from Crocker:
This is Luskin's message:
Release the hounds!
Ouch, this is hitting close to home (literally, I live less than a mile from the Challenger Learning Center). I never knew that the museum was in any way associated with the university and I suppose the links must be tenuous and tortuous to keep any of the biology department from noticing this. I'm still surprised that the museum would make this kind of a decision, but I will definitely e-mail some folks and bring it to the attention of local biologists and professors.
As I mentioned to Mike I was just feeling pretty good about Tallahassee after Darwin Day last month and attending a liberal-packed Roy Zimmerman concert just last night. And then this sort of thing comes along.
And boy, our legislators don't need any help being misinformed.
P.S. "Me", with these craven tactics I'm just SURE that the Expelled folks have the truth on their side.
Canned post listing the creo victims. The truth is out there and it is ugly. The creos are far ahead on body counts while claiming persecution. Two on the list were beaten up. No one has been killed. Yet. SOP, they lie a lot.
I believe Ben Stein and his ilk should hereto be referred to as Neo-Lysenkoites.
Perhaps someone should send Ben Stein a link to this little history lesson, and the parallel will drive the point home.
Although this may be giving Stein and Co too much credit, as Lysenko was actually a trained scientist.
It's Fuflun, not Bacchus, prepare to suffer for your insolence!
Oh noes, I'm gonna have to drink Merlot!
I pity you ignorant fools. The only truth is that which can be found in the Church of the Traveling Clam.
I'm convinced, the church of the travelling clam it is.
There are weekly festivities right?
It'll be funny when all the late night comedians and Jon Stewart make fun of Ben Stein and the movie.
What a joke this will turn into. I'm not too worried.
Look at "Me"... he's a joke too.
I'm pissed that I get a gmail ad for this movie everytime I open an e-mail with the word "science" in it.
hey, travelling clam sounds good. Is it like Catholicism, where you get to eat of his flesh? 'Cause I loves me some clam chowder!
Hey, we can even mix in some Christianity. Some of the Soylent Jesus wafers. Clam chowder needs crackers!
"How does that "give away the store" or anything else? OF COURSE life "may" have been designed, and OF COURSE we "may" be able to detect it."
Is that not the research program of ID? If that is science, then what makes ID religion instead of science?
"The point is that we have NOT seen any necessity to conclude this from a scientific point of view."
"...necessity to conclude..." That's an interesting phrase. There are always untested alternative hypotheses to explain any set of data, ad infinitum. As such, one could always claim it is never a necessity to conclude some particular conclusion. This comes in very handy if one has a strong aversion to that conclusion.
"Any statement Dawkins makes to the effect that "of course I could be wrong" is simply how scientists must and always work."
But that is not the context in which he makes his statements. He proposes this as an explanation for the beginning of life on earth.
Not to worry though, Richard will have plenty of time to come up with a spin to explain how he didn't really say what he said ... of course the tape may prove him wrong ...
hey, travelling clam sounds good. Is it like Catholicism, where you get to eat of his flesh? 'Cause I loves me some clam chowder!
Hey, we can even mix in some Christianity. Some of the Soylent Jesus wafers. Clam chowder needs crackers!
And tobasco, must have tobasco (the blood...but a bloody mary works pretty well for that too)
Our trolling creationist says that Dawkins suggests life on earth began by design. Does Me really believe that Dawkins thinks that? If so, Me is a fool. Dawkins has given ample evidence in books, interviews, and speeches that he believes nothing of the sort, even if he is willing to entertain the notion that it's not categorically impossible; but it would take a lot of evidence, which might in theory be detected, to bring him around. Go dig up some evidence, Me. Try to find one scrap of evidence over at the Discovery Institute, which ought to be a clearing house for that sort of stuff. Except for the petty carping, however, all is silence.
As long as we're feeding the troll, folks, pass along some of that tasty chowder from the church of the traveling clam, the latest incarnation of infallibly revealed religion. Try to avoid the sectarian carnage between the crouton faction versus the onion cracker faction.
What research have Intelligent Design proponents done to further the study of Intelligent Design "theory"?
And as for Intelligent Design "theory" being religious in nature, let's let Phillip Johnson, Father of Intelligent Design, fill you in, ne?
So, then, if Intelligent Design "theory" is not religious in nature, then why is its creator saying that theology is of far greater importance than any actual science?
Also, Zeno, have you ever tried geoduck?
Are we talkin New England Clam Chowder?
Because that's the only chowder I eat.
Look, dear "Me", why would Dawkins need to talk himself out of anything (besides poor editing)?
There is no clear consensus on the origin of life at this point, there are some good ideas that look promising and need some more testing though, whats wrong with giving a likely process and adding that you could be wrong?
Is your view of scientists really so warped that you think it's special when one says that he could be shown wrong when the evidence is presented?
You've seen the film--now read the fliers;
Learn how these deceptive liars
Aren't heroic do-or-die-ers,
Rather, simple truth deniers
Preaching to religious choirs.
If a college somehow hires
Someone who, in truth, aspires
To pull the plug or cut the wires
Of science, and to fan the fires
Of ignorance his god desires,
The sooner such a man retires
Or is replaced, like worn-out tires,
The better. Such a move inspires!
(The end. No matter who inquires.
Oh, and happy birthday, PZ Myers.)
Are we talkin New England Clam Chowder?
Because that's the only chowder I eat.
It's the only kind there is.
Tell that to New Yorkers. They have an abomination they call chowder and it has tomatoes in it.
Me #31 wrote:
The problem with ID isn't that it involves God or the supernatural. It's that it has no research program, makes no testable claims, provides no model, and posits no mechanism. There is no way to rule out "something is the way it is because someone wanted it that way."
Intelligent Design is cut out by the Principle of Parsimony, in that it fails to explain anything by being capable of explaining everything. Those few times when it has tried to get explicit and avoid God of the Gap assertions, it manages to fall into the same category as the paranormal -- it fails direct tests, so "maybe current science can't show it but it exists anyway" gets invoked. Occam's razor doesn't care what you like or don't like.
ID is a combination of non-science and failed science. If we find an evolutionary pathway which explains something we once thought was "irreducibly complex," instead of being falsified the light is simply shifted to another area of ignorance and the "theory" remains unaffected. That is not good.
Zeno,
In his book Dawkins favors the notion that the improbability of life occuring by the chance combination of chemicals is made probable by the many places throughout the universe where life might could form. Unfortunately his simple numbers (pulled from who knows where) ignore what we can already surmise about number of possible places where life could form. My only guess is that since he published his book, he has been given such information, and now thinks that life on earth being designed is the best (or one of the best) explanations.
I grew up in NY and I deny that anything with tomatoes in it deserves the name chowder.
"My only guess is that since he published his book, he has been given such information, and now thinks that life on earth being designed is the best (or one of the best) explanations."
Your guess?
You are a joke.
What exactly can we "already surmise about number of possible places where life could form" ?
My only guess is that since he published his book, he has been given such information, and now thinks that life on earth being designed is the best (or one of the best) explanations.
No one is allowed to blame this on weed. Weed simply does not have the power to make one this batshit crazy.
The artist currently known as "Me" said: "Please try and squash everyone and everything associated with this movie, it will reinforce the very point that the movie is trying to make."
We're not trying to "squash" (by which you seem to mean forcibly censor) anything, we're criticizing and mocking. They're not the same thing, contrary to the frequent assertions of creationists like yourself. Whiners.
Cuttlefish, one hopes your creativity never expires or retires.
@Dutch Delight: That there are lots of them and to think that Earth is the only one is the height of arrogance?
Unfortunately his simple numbers (pulled from who knows where) ignore what we can already surmise about number of possible places where life could form.
Care to inform us as to what "we can already surmise about number of possible places where life could form"?
"There is no way to rule out 'something is the way it is because someone wanted it that way.'"
Sure there is, demonstrate that it can be made through natural processes.
Look Sastra, suppose that the only claim of ID is this:
"Intellegent causes exist (for example, humans). It may be possible to determine when some things are caused by an intelligence, as opposed to being caused by naturalistic processes with no intelligence involved."
If that is the only claim of ID, then is ID a science program or not?
It's the producers of "Expelled" who are consistently trying to limit its exposure and audience and the resulting criticism.
Critics of the movie are trying to tear down those curtains.
Me #42 wrote:
I think this is unlikely, since cosmologists have been on a roll recently finding planets in other solar systems. They have also been discovering life deep undersea in areas where they did not previously think it could exist.
It is more likely that you're misunderstanding a point Dawkins is making to the effect that even IF the first form of life started through an intelligent agent, that would still not change or effect the Theory of Evolution as a whole, since abiogenesis is not usually included in the 'reproduction -->variation --> selection' algorithm. Although some biologists disagree on whether abiogenesis is included in evolution (PZ, for one), that's a rather standard point, and hardly some sort of amazing admission or reversal.
cuttlefish #38 wrote:
REALLY?
Well, cuttlefish's sense of timing is always impeccable, so I will add "Happy Birthday" also then!
I'm suspecting Ben and his team of experts have problems understanding what Dawkins means when he says that an advanced civilization could produce and design life. At one of his talks in Lynchburg (i think) there was a "christian college" student that had the same problem.
I guess they have trouble understanding why Dawkins thinks it's possible for there to be aliens that have so much power and technology they would be like gods to us. The difference being, that aliens aren't supernatural, in other words, they are not at odds with our current understanding of the universe. The supernatural is.
At any rate, conscious design is not really what biologists are finding. But thats old news. That and the FACT that despite all Ben's talk of freedom, they are keeping the actual movie hidden away from the general public, it's contributors and it's critics while making grandiose claims about their findings towards their cheerleaders. Until they stop being so scared of the ebil outside world, there's really nothing to talk about besides the clear lack of moral fiber amongst the producers, sponsors and marketers of this movie. I'd love to talk about content, but there isn't any yet, so this will have to do.
"What exactly can we "already surmise about number of possible places where life could form" ?"
Dutch, If you really want to know, and you really have an open mind about it, you'll look it up for yourself and educate yourself. Only then will you be able to get anything out of it.
Craig says 'Just checked out Mark Witt's "blog." WTF?'
Mark's blog purports to be the pages of the Intelligent Design Institute of Theory. Consider the initials of the institute.
Me asks 'what makes ID religion and instead of science?'
One quick answer is that IDers have never said what findings they would accept as a refutation of ID. That is also the reason why it is incorrect to refer to the notions of ID as being a theory. A theory must make predictions which, if found to be false, would invalidate the theory.
Dutch didn't write that, I did. And your answer is revealing--you don't know. Apparently you don't realize that the universe is an awfully big place, either.
Ugh. As I write, my salivary glands are working overtime to lubricate my mouth and throat in case I can't keep the vomit down. "Ugh" is all I can manage.
And me will have plenty of time to wave to Dawkins as he passes the 7th circle (blasphemers) on his way to the 8th (liars).
@55-
Sorta; my source of info is way ahead of me in terms of time zones. It is PZed's birthday... in Australia, at least. PZed himself will have to wait another half day or so.
but it fit the rhyme...
There is no way to rule out 'something is the way it is because someone wanted it that way.'
Me #51 wrote:
How do you then rule out "(S)someone wanted the natural processes to work that way?"
Remember, you are not contrasting "Nature" with "Human Artifice." You are contrasting (1.) Nature Without Intention with (2.) Nature With Intention Behind It, and looking to see where "life" fits in.
Give clear examples of things in each category, (1) and (2).
Yes, it would be. For example, we could be comparing a rock with unknown marks on it against known examples of human carvings -- and then known examples of natural weathering -- to figure out if it's likely to be a spear head, or just a rock which broke in a way that makes it look like a spear head.
The problem with applying ID outside of "intelligent (human) causes" comes in finding the "known examples of nature which was created by an intelligence" and the "known examples of nature which was not created by an intelligence."
Again, show me what parts of the universe we can all agree that God had nothing to do with.
"Dutch didn't write that, I did."
No RamblinDude, Dutch did write that. You wrote:
"Care to inform us as to what "we can already surmise about number of possible places where life could form"?"
See comment #45.
Well, hush my mouth...
I wish all you cretin evos would get a grip and just take it up the nose with a little class.
I mean even after you see the movie and the public worldwide unleashes hordes of rabid bats into your labs you'll still get to have sex with lab animals, smoke crack, keep your swastika tatoos,eat guppies, engage in group sex at your conferences, and keep your VW pop top with the grafetti and bug netting.
This post has more turds in it than first sewage clarifier outside Baltimore.
Ben will likely be nominated next year for the best documentary in the last decade while the evos wallow in their excrement and PZ Myers has to be put on suicide watch.
Pz got paid, no bitching. He even finally had enough cash at one time to get a new pair of painters pants for his next superconference in Fargo.
Hey folks, the party just now started. Keith is here. But going by his last sentence, he does not understand that evolutionist live in the lap of luxury. I wish the creationists would get together and get their stories straight.
Me, I quoted that sentence from your post, i wanted to know your opinion on the likelyhood of life, even intelligent life like ourselves existing elsewhere.
Nobody is saying there's evidence for such life yet, we're just not finding anything that indicates it's impossible. Given that our own evolution on this planet was influenced by occasional mass extinctions due to relatively unpredictable events as meteor impacts it's also perfectly possible to postulate that other civilizations could have a headstart on us of a few million years. So, here we are, alien beings who would look like gods to us, could create and design life.
Now comes the hard part, actually showing that this is what happened. If you or the ID PR team does this, you can expect a call from Sweden. Now, go to a lab and get to it.
Can I just have the crack? I'm getting too old for group sex (I just don't have the energy any more), and there's always someone I don't want touching me....
I can't tell if post 65 is supposed to be satire or not.
Hehehe... Keith is crazy.
Is it just me, or do other people also get the impression that Keith Eaton's comments are getting more graphic and violent? I have no training in the area, but it looks to me as though he is rapidly going off the rails.
Hm. I've always classified Keith Eaton as a Creationist troll, but I admit I'm starting to have my doubts, too. He could be an atheist troll.
If #65 was indeed satire, then "painters pants" were taken in vain. It is abominable to thus execrate the evolutionist's equivalent of sacred vestments (also known as "temple garments").
Keith is just a troll.
Ignore it and the rants should get quite entertaining.
Keith:
Awesome parody.
Mr Me:
No, Me, that would not make ID a science program...I disagree a bit with Sastra there, though he and I mean the same thing, I think.
I don't think there's a rational scientist who would disagree with your hypothetical "ID claim." But the claim, as written, is NOT ID's claim, and it has no explanatory or predictive power beyond "maybe we can figure out that some things are designed." Of course we can. We do it all the time with human products. The problem is that the claim is silent on HOW we can detect design.
Think about it, friend. How would you detect design and a designer in any other circumstance? You'd compare it against knowns, no? We know silicon-and-plastic PCs are usually found in nature, and we further know that humans DO manufacture them, and we further know how they manufacture them, and we further know that Russian PCs tend to have some very distinctive characteristics, all adding up to a high likelihood of being able to detect the fact of design and identity of the designer of a Russian-made PC.
Yet ID offers none of this. No positive detection methods. IDists are quite certain of the fact of design and the identity of the Designer, yet they offer no means to identify said Designer's fingerprints or said Designer itself, and offer no explanation as to mechanism. Their entire "program" consists of negative evidence and false duality, of pointing at things biologists can't yet explain (often erroneously) and declaring: "You don't know and you can't possibly ever know because only the Designer could do it!" And then we go on to figure it out anyway... Without positive evidence, for ID to have any hope, it has to assert that the simple fact of design itself is somehow special and inherently detectable.
At the Dover trial, Behe claimed that mutations introduced by a designer could not inherently be identified as designed. But he then claimed that a test of ID would be to place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum into a laboratory setting under selective pressure for mobility and see if it evolved a flagellum or equally complex mobility system over a long period of time. Now, of course there are issues with what Behe would accept as "long enough time" and "equally complex," but the problem is more fundamental than this. Under the ID detection method of "it looks designed to me," there is nothing that prevents Behe from declaring after some mobility system is evolved that it was in itself designed. Indeed, there is no reason he shouldn't make this claim! Why would a Designer's work in a lab experiment be any different from a Designer's work in any other setting? No real scientist would accept this test as a means of distinguishing design and non-design for precisely this reason.
Can't you see why? It's because there's no actual way under the current utter lack of an ID "model" to distinguish "it evolved gradually with selective pressure and other known evolutionary mechanisms acting on random mutation" from "it was gradually designed with a Designer exerting selective pressure on random mutations and introducing nonrandom mutations." Behe himself states you can't look "under the hood" to detect design.
Sorry for the appearance of mean-spiritedness this may cause (though you gotta admit, your cheerful ignorance is trying everyone's patience here) but I couldn't resist:
"Once a boy named Mr. Me bemoaned a great regret
'I've floundered in the misty sea
But can't abide its mystery
I wound up sad you bet.'"
Like I've said before, only crackpots and their moronic groupies complain about the alleged incompetence and close-mindedness of the authorities and genuine experts in a particular field, as well as make numerous pleas for "open-mindedness."
For Me to come to the conclusion that Dawkins now supports Intelligent Design "theory," despite the fact that Dawkins has taken it to task over its total inability to explain ANYTHING in a scientific manner, or the fact that Dawkins has also bemoaned the fact that Intelligent Design proponents have demonstrated a total lack of drive, desire or even ability to make even the most rudimentary positive contribution to Science, it is quite obvious that Me is so open-minded that Me's brain bodily fell out of Me's cranium, and mistook the squishy thud of the brain impacting with the concrete for an epiphany.
It's not just you. Keith has taken on a sort of Michael Korn kind of crazy. I figure it's only a matter of time before we start seeing the usual death threats and sundry nuttiness that come when one's delusions are challenged by reality.
Ah yes, "look it up yourself," the last refuge of the professor who doesn't have a damned clue. Of course, this happens to all teachers sometimes, and they always include "I actually don't know" with "feel free to look it up yourself."
ID is outside the scope of science, because its proponents are unwilling to say "I don't really know."
Don't worry, "me," people will be here patiently waiting to answer your questions as to why ID does not postulate any actual theories. We won't make you go look them up yourself.
Nick Davies' new book, "Flat Earth News: An Award-Winning Reporter Exposes Falsehood, Distortion and Propaganda in the Global Media" (Chatto & Windus).
http://www.alternet.org/story/77281/
Sasra,
"You are contrasting (1.) Nature Without Intention with (2.) Nature With Intention Behind It, and looking to see where "life" fits in."
No I'm not.
I'm also not talking about comparing things with things we know (or think) have been made by humans. I'm talking about investigating the generalized hallmarks of design (be it human design or animal design) and then applying those principles to the world around us to see if we can detect intelligent design in those things which we don't know if they were intelligently designed. (what a horrible sentence)
Gotta go for now, I'll check back later
Loki, Keith's droppings are loaded with all sorts of violent imagery, like when he predicted that the general population with send dogs out to hunt down evolutionists. He also predicted that Expelled will pull in 750 million dollars. If this is satire, it is not really that funny. If he is serious, I think he needs someone around to occasionally remind him to breathe.
"Craig says 'Just checked out Mark Witt's "blog." WTF?'
Mark's blog purports to be the pages of the Intelligent Design Institute of Theory. Consider the initials of the institute.
I'm just surprised that a guy sitting in his underwear trying to use Blogger (and failing to do so competently) can constitute an "Institute."
Yeah, a lot sounds like Bush Admin approach to science and transparency. Here's a quote from the Expelled website:
"Unlike many documentaries, Expelled doesn't just talk to people representing one side of the story. The film confronts evolutionists such as Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, influential biologist and atheist blogger PZ Myers, ..." Forgive me if I overlooked his response elsewhere, but what did PZ say assuming this is true?
I think a lot of that really depends upon the location and how many pillows you put up on the walls.
I seem to remember PZ thought he was being interviewed for a completely different movie and was worried they'd edit his replies or quote mine or something. It's on the site somewhere.
Stanton wrote:
So, if I complain about the alleged incompetence and close-mindedness of Paul Bremer because he disbanded the Iraqi army then I'm a crackpot and a moronic groupie?
Was Galileo a crackpot when he challenged the authorities of his time?
I'm on your side, but I think you'll have to do better than that.
Ah, you see Mr. Me? Now (in #80) we're making progress. Of course, as I mentioned, there seem to be some problems in identifying the "generalized hallmarks of design." Every attempt I'm aware of thus far winds up straight back at "looks designed to me!" It still refuses to look under the hood or make predictions about what you'd find there other than "a bunch of stuff that works." Yeah, gee, thanks...couldn't have guessed that on my own...
If I may address Mr. Me's planetary allusions, as a number of folks have been circling them: I imagine he's getting at some version of the fine-tuning or "Privileged Planet" arguments, suggesting that Earth is an incredibly rare class of planet and that life can only exist on Earthlike planets, thus our existence is best explained by the FSM's grace. Both claims are highly questionable, but the bigger problem is that (I strongly suspect) Mr. Me is claiming that since we haven't yet found an Earthlike planet or life among the hundreds of extrasolar planets we've now detected, that supports his claim of rarity. It's characteristic of his arguments thus far here that he doesn't appear to understand why we wouldn't expect to find life and Earthlike planets...yet.
And to those asking about PZ's role in "Expelled"...how could you read this site and miss it?! Just use the site's search box for the title and you'll find plenty.
Scientifically minded people: "Shouldn't they let potential critics view Expelled?"
Typical IDiot: "NO! If people are allowed to view information about how we're trying to influence politics, they might squash us by exercising their freedom of speech and informing the public! Everyone knows expressing an opinion in a harsh tone of voice is exactly the same as persecution! How DARE you try to get information to express your opinions and correct lies!"
For Loki and Keith Eaton and others who are wondering, here is PZ's account of how he got interviewed for Expelled.
Me #80 wrote:
But you can't detect the difference between "intelligently designed nature" and "undesigned nature" if the examples you use when you're distinguishing articial from natural no longer apply.
You have a human skeleton. Your task is to determine (1) was this carved out of bone by a human artist or (2) is this a natural, undesigned skeleton. So far so good. You're looking for the "general hallmarks of design" to tell the difference.
You examine the skeleton, apply what you know about how artists work on material, and conclude (2) is true -- it is a natural, undesigned skeleton, and not an artificially-contrived carving. Conclusion made.
But now let's decide whether or not the natural, undesigned skeleton was ARTIFICIALLY DESIGNED after all by a non-human artist working through nature. Huh?
You can't. Using the processes we're familiar with (investigating the general hallmarks of human and animal design and how they contrast with nature), we already concluded (2). You can't go on and throw out the conclusion arrived at by the very process you want to keep on using.
I'll ask again: What parts of NATURE were NOT designed by God? What is "Artificial Nature?" If that is one of the choices, you have to have examples to compare that natural skeleton to.
Fabricating stories, planting stories, pitching stories, all cheerfully delivered with self indulgence and complete contempt for truth.
FRAMING, FRAMING, FRAMING.
Norman Doering, it is highly probable that Stanton is a rabid Israeli cyber typist directly out of the Hasbra handbook.
He will attack ANY criticism of Israel.
You haven't seen anything yet.
Loki #85:
Yeah. He gave 'em 3+ hours' worth of his valuable time - for which he was paid. Did he really believe this documentary was going to be 3+ hours' worth of him? Did it never occur to him that most all of it might get edited out for a film that isn't 3+ hours' worth of PZ?
I'm wondering if you realize how positively D-U-M-B that sounds. PZ's just concerned about which of his pontifications got left in. Maybe he could buy the cutting room trash and make his own 3+ hours' worth of "PZ: Unedited" movie. Or figure out what got into the 'Expelled' movie by noting what's missing.
Gerry, you fucking twit!
Here is the full text of the email I wrote the administration of the Challenger Learning Center and to the dean of science and engineering at FSU, who is on the board:
To:mpersonette@challengertlh.fsu.edu, sborland@challengertlh.fsu.edu, safford@challengertlh.fsu.edu, hhawbecker@challengertlh.fsu.edu
CC: nthagard@eng.fsu.edu
Subject:Regarding screening of the movie "Expelled" at the Challenger Learning Center
Michelle Personette, Director
Challenger Learning Center
200 South Duval Street
Tallahassee, FL 32301
Dear Ms. Personette,
It has come to my attention that the Challenger Learning Center, whose mission
is to provide K-12 students with "standards-aligned, high-quality "hands-on"
educational experiences in science and engineering", is to screen the movie
"Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" at your IMAX theater on Wednesday, March
12th 2008.
I just wanted to voice my objection to the use of your facility, which is
geared towards teaching children evidence based science and reasoning, to
screen a movie that is in opposition to your stated purpose and goals. From my
reading of the movie's website and promotional materials, it seems to me that
the movie promotes the idea of "intelligent design" as an alternative
scientific theory to that of the theory of evolution. Furthermore, the movie
is being screened at your facility for Florida legislators in order to
influence their vote on the controversial "Academic Freedoms Act" (Senate Bill
2692 and House Bill 1483). These two bills were introduced into the Florida
legislature in direct response to last month's ruling by the Florida State
Board of Education to approve of the new strong science standards in which the
theory of evolution will be taught as an underlying and unifying principle in
all of biology.
I feel that your organization was probably unaware of this situation and I urge
you to rethink allowing a group which is inimical to evidence-based science to
use your facility to further non-scientific ideas as science. If that is not
possible, I urge you to allow science faculty, teachers, and other scientists
who are well versed in the various facets of biological evolution to be present
at the screening and to give them equal time to present the actual science
behind evolution and to counter any arguments made by the pro-intelligent
design parties. I feel that allowing your facility to be used in this purpose
does a great disservice to the citizens of Florida, who hold facilities like
yours in high regard as being standard bearers in teaching and disseminating
good scientific knowledge.
Respectfully,
pksp
I've been through interviews before. I knew 3 hours of interview for a 2 hour movie meant AT BEST 5 minutes of time in the final cut; and from the few comments I've heard my part is so unmemorable and negligible that I probably got substantially less than that. Do notice in all the ravings about me on the expelled blog that they never once cite anything that I actually said. Curious, that.
As for Dawkins' concession that life could have been introduced to earth by aliens or whatever...I concede exactly the same thing. That's no big deal at all. However, "coulda" is not sufficient for science -- we need some evidence. ID hasn't provided any.
You do know that science requires more than unfounded speculations plucked from the shadowy recesses of one's nether cheeks, right?
I think Mike O'Risal is off at least a little. The Challenger Learning Center site he links--hosted on FSU's webspace--is copyrighted 2005. If you go to the Challenger Center's own staff page, you'll note that it's more up-to-date: for example, the woman who's the "Interim Director" on the page linked by O'Risal is the "Director" on the Challenger Center's own page. Aaron Green, with his phys ed degree, is nowhere to be found. Harry Hawbecker, whose "Program Assistant" duties include "producing new planetarium shows," has a BS in physics and math.
Now, it's still the case that the two education directors don't have science degrees per se, they have either education degrees or science education degrees. But seeing as how the mission of the center is the education of kids and teenagers, I think having education directors who have devoted their whole lives to that field isn't exactly a bad idea.
The staff may well be letting their venal interests override their missions here. But to say they're "grossly unqualified to assess the merits" is, IMO, an overstatement itself. There are very good reasons to get in touch with FSU and FAMU people, but I don't think complaining about the qualifications of the center's staff should be among them.
Me, there is no such thing as a "science program"; such a term does not exist. The question is whether ID is science.
Let's see. How do cdesign proponentsists explain Stupid Design?
------------------------------------
On the improbability argument, remember that Earth already had continents and oceans 4.4 billion years ago, yet the oldest possible traces of life known so far are only 3.85 billion years old. I'm sure you agree that a lot can happen in 550 million years!
------------------------------------
And, gerald, do you find it very hard to stay on topic?
Nice contrived argument there jb.
It doesn't matter PZ was paid, it's not news, i've got to wonder why you would bring that up when nobody has suggested he didn't get paid. PZ and others where interviewed by people that misrepresented their goals and are still to this day keeping the end-product hostage and it's duped contributors in the dark.
What does this tell you about the integrity of the people working on expelled? What is the problem of sending the people that were interviewed a copy of their interviews or just the end-product when it's already being used to attack them as has already become clear? Why deny everyone any chance for a critical look? Why all the smoke and mirrors when ID is going to revolutionize science?
(probably the same straw-constructed atheists who insist that there is no possibility that any form of anything called God could in theory exist.)
I don't see any possibility.
My basic reason for saying this: read enough statements about God and it becomes perfectly obvious that people have no idea what they are talking about.
I'm not going to grant possible reality to a idea that is so patently the product of a boatload of bullshitters.
"Me" mangled the book to argue that
You really shouldn't try to do this with someone who has a searchable pdf of The God Delusion. No, he doesn't do that. He does argue that even if there is a low probability of life arising on any one planet, there are so many planets that there is a high probability of life arising somewhere. Here's the relevant section:
I'll be having dinner with Richard Dawkins in two weeks. I'll be sure to ask him about these purported claims from the movie that he now believes little green men started life on earth, and I'll bet it's a beautiful example of a quote mine, and that while he'll concede the logical possibility, he does not consider it likely, and definitely considers it unsupported by the evidence.
Gee, how did I know that when PZ wrote a post about the propaganda techniques of Expelled and their extreme cageyness with who gets to see the movie that someone would still come in and accuse us of trying to "squash" their movie and ideas? The myopia is astounding.
Meanwhile, I think our friend Keith is a performance artist. Although, without the random swear words inserted in mid-sentence and even mid-clause, he still falls short of the ideal set by Neal with an A.
"I mean even after you see the movie and the public worldwide unleashes hordes of rabid bats into your labs you'll still get to have sex with lab animals, smoke crack, keep your swastika tatoos,eat guppies, engage in group sex at your conferences, and keep your VW pop top with the grafetti and bug netting."
Here's a perfect indictment of the creationist/religionist's eternal jealousy of anyone that they think might be having more fun than them. Well done! Although you really can't include "eat guppies" but leave out "pack phone booths".
"I'm not going to grant possible reality to a idea that is so patently the product of a boatload of bullshitters."
Thank you Cal, or George. That is PRECISELY why I stopped calling myself an agnostic around the end of my undergraduate education.
I'm sorry PZ but for once I must disagree with you.
I've seen the film and all it made me do was laugh. In my book, that makes it a comedy.
Hmm, replace "jealousy" above with "envy". Old linguistic habits die hard.
caerbannog wrote:
The problem is that they might take my whole country down with their insane financial moves.
By the way, did you know that Ben Stein admits he has only a "little pea brain."
This whole EXPELLED business is disgusting. It's an impossible argument because no matter what evidence is thrown at ID-creationists, they dismiss it as being "insufficient." They're lost in their own little world and they refuse to think outside "Intelligent Design's Black Box."
In any case, I'm hoping within the next 15 years or so the mission to explore Europa will turn up some geothermal vents and primitive life-forms, or a completely foreign ecosystem. One must wonder how a creationist would explain that away.
PZ - "I'll be having dinner with Richard Dawkins in two weeks."
For the love of God, ask him what "42" means ... DA must have told somebody and RD was one of his bestest mates (I beleive) ...
Anyway he's married to a Time Lord so he must have some sort of unearthly knowledge.
Someone also might want to contact Michael Ruse about this. He's at Florida State I believe.
PZ, would you consider a separate post delineating the specifics about this propaganda horror and how you were used?
Many academics lack street smarts, as we have noticed.
The classic example is the two Stanford physicists, Targ & Putoff, who were bamboozled by magician Uri Geller's sleight of hand.
A simple plausible hypothesis of magicianship would have plugged right in.
1. Did these guys set you up? If so, how?
2. Did they lie to you?
3. Were you paid?
4. It is hard for me to accept that you didn't have all kinds of suspicions about their circuitous designs, and the high probability that it all would be distorted.
The thought of Ben Stein on one of those huge IMAX screens...
[shudder]
PZ - "I'll be having dinner with Richard Dawkins in two weeks."
Is Squid on the menu?
Why is everyone making such a big freakin' deal about whether or not PZ was paid for giving an interview to these deceptive folks from Expelled?
Really. What is the fucking relevance?
If anything, I think it just goes to show how pathetic the quote-raping creo-tards are in that they've actually got to BUY opinions for their pseudo-scientific nonsense.
Me writes:
I'm talking about investigating the generalized hallmarks of design (be it human design or animal design) and then applying those principles to the world around us to see if we can detect intelligent design in those things which we don't know if they were intelligently designed.
So how's it going for you?? Find any good evidence, yet? If you can present some compelling evidence you'll be a shoo-in for a Nobel Prize. But you gotta have that compelling evidence... Just find us the fingerprints of the hand of god and you'll be famous and powerful and you'll certainly be doing the big guy's work.
Get to it!
I did not know, until today, that Dawkins was responding to a timely rehash of Fred Hoyle's panspermia theory.
Sir Fred had a great brain and terrific mathematical facilty with mathematics, but there are no guarantees, Monsieur.
Sounds like framing behavior, Tonto.
"Not impossible but so highly improbable that we might look elsewhere ..."
Or, must we chase every rat in the experiment until it dies?
FRAMING, FRAMING, FRAMING.
Hey, Me. Maybe I missed in all of the comments, but did you ever define the word "design". If not, define "design".
CalGeorge #99 wrote:
(probably the same straw-constructed atheists who insist that there is no possibility that any form of anything called God could in theory exist.)
You didn't give enough credit to my generous plethora of 'weasel' words (possibility; any form; any thing; could; in theory). You also don't give enough credit to the real range and variations of God which have popped up over time. Definitions and descriptions slop all over the place, ranging from "God is just another name for Reality, that's all" to Everything-Is-Consciousness to Information Fields Embedded in the Universe to Life Energy to Omniscient, Omnipotent Creator etc. Some definitions are so vague you don't know what's being said: some definitions are so concrete it sounds like someone is envisioning a really Big space alien or a little buddy ghost friend.
There doesn't have to be a consensus (there can't be). All you have to do is range over history to find some version somewhere which could loosely fit the rock-bottom general description of "God" enough for you to conceive that okay, that would have been believable IF conditions in the universe were so-and-so -- and there you are. Thought experiment time, imagine tomorrow everything changed in just such a way, and you go "oh, okay -- I was wrong."
Yes, I know some definitions of God make God "not even wrong." But give God a chance! Some of them really are wrong.
Steve,
I will define ID for you and unabashedly so!
Oh geez. Florida State is my alma mater. I sent an email.
KC
Dan, Dan, Dan...sigh. Don't you know that in the Creo/Neocon universe, money makes everything okay?
Gerald: Do you actually read the comments here?
Pay me, and I'll believe that. In fact, just buy me a beer or two (or twenty), and I'm good.
As demonstrated in this thread, the producers of the Expelled movie have a real problem with their core audience. The ID movement isn't disciplined enough to keep a lid on the nutjobs in their ranks, like Mark Witt up-thread and his "Intelligent Design Institute Of Theory" blog (assuming that isn't satire... you have to wonder with the initials).
http://instituteoftheory.blogspot.com/
They're going to end up with most of the word-of-mouth promotion coming from bible thumping wackos, which gives the game away. Just like it did in Dover.
Mark W., I didn't ask for a definition of ID, I asked for a definition of "design".
For fuck's sake, you twit. Gerry, I linked to PZ's account earlier. Just scroll up a little bit.
Ummm... Design is intelligence. And, intelligence is designed.
See? Makes perfect sense.
Steve, 'design' is that which God does before He Creates. There is no difference between design and intelligent design in the end.
However, the conventional meaning of design is to plan out with a purpose in mind.
Does the universe need a purpose?
"...'design' is that which God does before He Creates..."
Glad that's been nailed down.
I'm sure it's been said before, but the reason Ben Stein and co. would NEVER want to show the movie to any scientists is because, to them, every scientist is a member of the great anti-Christ conspiracy! After all, they all seem to believe evolution, and we know evolution is a lie from Satan. So it's all a big conspiracy by the devil's army. They wouldn't see it as "fair" to show this movie to Satan's own shocktroopers. Even if they did screen it for them, they would disregard any criticism, because Satan is "the father of lies."
"However, the conventional meaning of design is to plan out with a purpose in mind."
Evolution certainly does not show any evidence of there being any purpose in mind. If it did we would not see the optic nerve in mammals being routed out of the front of the eye. We would also see human females much better designed for the delivery of large-headed babies. Instead what we in evolution is a kind of muddling through, working with what you have got. There is plenty of evidence of evolutionary dead-ends. Species that evolved to fill a niche that then disappeared and could not evolve fast enough to survive. Evolution does not produce perfectly designed species, just species that are just good enough.
#38
You are the coolest.
I slogged through two of troll-asshat "Me" and he (this one has a penis, though its symbolic size might require a micrometer to measure) proves the rule true again: Xians lack the qualities of humor, intentional irony, logic, and honesty. Their real gawd is a childish fear of what's under the beds and in the closets of their poisoned ignorance.
Only the honestly ignorant Christian ever deserves my interest, or sympathy.
I certainly know surprisingly little about most things, and much of what I know is wrong (actually, in a way, EVERYTHING I know is), and I take this as the starting point of joy in being a human being.
Xians, fundies of all yellow-stripes - and arrogant, lying asses like Ben Stein - are what make this world unnecessarily miserable.
"Does the universe need a purpose?"
I think the universe is just the copy-protection (DRM) for some higher being's intellectual property. Scientists trying to understand it are pirates.
By the way, of course it's a propaganda flick. If it wasn't, they wouldn't force reporters covering their press-conferences to sign non-disclosure agreements. They know their message wouldn't hold up to scrutiny, and subsequently, they need to lie, deceive, and vet the questions so as to keep the illusion of interest in their message alive without having that message scrutinized.
In the end, however, once this film hits theaters (if it hits theaters), and they can no longer take steps to control public opinion, people will see the truth behind this movie, and reality will, once again, win.
At the last Atheist Alliance Convention, everyone going into the big ballroom to hear the speakers had to pass through metal detectors and a bomb-sniffing dog. This is because at least one of the speakers (Ayaan Hirsi Ali) had received numerous death threats (other speakers included Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Chris Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett, who are none too popular with the terrorists themselves.)
Now THAT'S what Expelled needs for their opening. Metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs -- because of course they are saying something very dangerous and the authorities don't want people to hear what it is!
And let me tell you -- that sort of thing is pretty impressive. And sobering. They should "steal" increased security measures. Let people know how how really, really bad it is for outspoken Christians.
From the invite:
There ya go PZ; a way in--if you can find a friendly legislator.
My parents often attend astronomy lectures at the Challenger center. They say they aren't given by anyone listed on the staff page, but rather a Dr. Skelly, who they describe as very bright and clearly (but implicitly) an atheist. I trust their judgment, so perhaps there's at least one competent person associated with the center. If someone could get in touch with that guy, maybe he could help...
Check out the comment by Ray Bellamy on the Florida Citizens for Science site. The CC may have had no way to turn the movie away--they couldn't discriminate.
http://www.flascience.org/wp/?p=497#comment-45614
Been wondering about that myself, MelM. Are the Expelled folks claiming this as an endorsement by the Center or the universities?
Dutch Delight #97:
It's been my understanding from the time PZ was quite excited about his big screen test that the production company who originally contracted for the interviews isn't the same company who ended up with the footage. Thus there may have been no misrepresentation at all, just standard operating procedure in an industry where footage in the can is the only asset when you've run out of money, that asset gets sold to the lucky buyer on the discount market.
IOW, Ben Stein was not involved at that time and did not personally interview PZ (or anyone else that I've heard). Stein's part was written-in when the project morphed under new ownership of the footage.
It tells me the people who bought the footage decided on a different angle after they viewed it. That secondhand footage required no further notifications or releases, it was owned property when they bought it. There were enough hours of raw footage of all interviewees pro and con to have made a dozen documentary short-subjects, or half a dozen features. Of any slant on the matter, depending on producer's assessment of what might make the most money by having the biggest audience. Then you hire a few hack writers and a 'name' to do the cameos. It's a business. It's not science.
Everyone will get a chance for a critical look if it ever goes to general release. If not, you can probably buy the straight-to DVD and be as critical as you like.
What makes you think this film is about science, biology, evolution or ID? I certainly didn't get that impression from any of the promos or reviews I've seen. And that's not the impression PZ was given when he took the money to play himself. It was then (and is now) about the so-called "Culture War" and the kinds of nefarious blackballing actions that have been blog-fodder in that culture war for years. I doubt PZ said anything he didn't mean, so what does it matter which 2-3 minutes of his 3+ hour interview made the cut?
Since he admits he knew he'd get maybe 5 minutes max and hasn't seen the film (which might well be a comedy even if an unintentional one), I don't see a reason for bitter complaint. What I see is a very clever promotional campaign being waged by a production company that may not have a publicly marketable film, using the actors in the film to do the promoting by stirring the targeted pot(s). SOP in Hollywood, PZ plays it like a pro.
rrt,
I don't see any such claim mentioned on the Florida Citizens for Science site at this time; but, you can bet I'll be watching. If CC is in anyway cosponsoring or endorsing this movie, then they should certainly be called on it.
The poster today for FCFS is angry about CC involvement, but CC may have had no choice in the matter--according to Bellamy anway who claims to have talked to the CC director.
Anyway, it's a relief to see that CC may be off-the-hook but it doesn't change the fact that the movie will be able to wrap itself in the flag of science, so to speak. Disgusting! Still, legislators can bring a guest. Hmmm......
rrt #74.
a good point over behe's ID 'test'. imagine that a flagellum equivalent is produced in a lab, the creationist has 2 options:
#1 declare creationism false as this supposed test could do.
OR #2 they could run around the circle yet again and say 'oh dear, this means i'm not going to sit next to jesus when i die so instead i'll decide that goddidit in the petri dish instead'.
as we know most creationists would pick #2 (again) and we'd be back at square 1 (again). so much for behe's creation 'test'.
heres a prediction.
i bet that expelled uses some extreme quote mining from the scott/dawkins/myers interviews, they might get all PZ's 'erms' (if any) or even just one 'erm' and throw a nice sequence of them so that when he is asked 'are there any transitional forms between organism a and organism b? PZ will go 'erm,erm, erm,erm, erm, erm, sniff, erm, erm,' and then the conclusion will be 'nope, no transitional forms!!'
i just hope to hell that the three of them didnt say anything like 'im not sure', 'no', 'thats not possible', 'darwin wasnt right in that case', the problem being that the multitudes of unsophisticated believers will believe just about anything, thats why they often eat twinkies, they have been conned into thinking they are actually good!!
Actually, JB, if you read this entry of PZ's: You have got to be kidding me, and compare it to this one, I think you should see the deception.
Now, you can believe that, Mark Mathis, the producer of Expelled, bought canned footage from Mark Mathis, the producer of Crossroads, but that seems a little odd, don't you think?
Then again, how common is the name Mark Mathis in Hollywood? Seems like it could be quite common, I guess.
JB:
Very good. But the next time you "play dumb for Jesus," try to increase your feigned ignorance of the subject. You gave away a bit too much knowledge of the film and PZ's role to be convincing.
And try it somewhere the audience is itself a bit more ignorant. We're well aware that the front company was set up by the Expelled team. Mathis was PZ's contact from day one. The intent was to deceive from day one.
(Okay, yes, you could just be that ignorant...but in the context of this thread wherein we've already repeatedly drawn attention to the blog's lengthy documentation of the subject, do you really want to wear that label?)
From the movie web site: http://expelledthemovie.com/blog/2008/03/06/ben-stein-smart-bombs-darwi…
Dawkins discussed the interview somewhere but I can't find a link. As I recall, someone else was supposed to do the interview but Stein showed up and Dawkins went ahead with it anyway. I don't believe Dawkins knew who Stein was.
rrrt:
ROTFLOL!!!! I know nothing I haven't seen on this blog, flutters and rumors here and there over the months, and now the big blow-out that looks well-designed to entice viewers into the theater to see for themselves what all the shouting's about. Same junk anybody out there could have picked up if they were halfway interested. Since Stein got involved I presumed it was a tongue-in-cheek look at these oh-so-dire "Culture Wars" most people give not a crap about. The short pants promo gave it away awhile ago.
Have you seen it yet? I haven't. Doubt very much it'll come anywhere near me even if it does go to general release, and I've no money to waste on it anyway. I'll wait until I can get it on 99¢ day at Flick.
Strikes me as a rather smart campaign even though I'm not a good target for that sort of thing. I wonder if a casual observer of this exchange (I know, there aren't any "casuals" here) could guess which of us is more likely to end up buying the product. It's not that hard.
Again, pretty good marketing.
jb, you are either pig-ignorant or a liar (possibly both).
stein personally interviewed Richard Dawkins. I would think that if you had as much detailed knowledge as you imply, you would know that.
How do I know that stein interviewed RD? Because I listened to this
In this interview Richard discusses his experience with stein and expelled, makes for interesting listening.
MelM, the interview you are thinking of is linked in my previous post.
wallace Turner @ #105 said:
"For the love of God, ask him what "42" means... DA must have told somebody and RD was one of his bestest mates (I believe)..."
Stephen Fry, another friend of DNA, claims to know... but he's not telling.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7283155.stm
If Richard Dawkins knows, I'd assume he'd be as adamant about keeping his word to a dear friend. I'd love to hear Dawkins (or Stephen, for that matter) talk about DNA though. After all, over dinner, do you think he really wants to talk shop (lab?), PZ? :)
Actually, that brings up a question... does Dawkins know Stephen Fry?
Also, wallace, if you didn't know, it was DNA that introduced Richard and Lalla. She knew DNA from his days writing for Doctor Who.
ID is true. God put mankind on earth as the precursor lifeform that will eventually build the divinely planned machine intelligence. We are the penultimate step of "directed evolution" in accordance with this plan.
I like to imagine the dinosaurs all sitting around munching their coconuts contentedly thinking "we are the crown of creation!" and the poor dumb critters didn't realize that they were off by millions of years.
Based on no evidence whatsoever, ID proponents somehow take it on faith that mankind is God's stopping-point. Oops. Wrong again.
Peter:
Oooooh, scary!
I just said I know only what I've read here and elsewhere on occasion. I don't follow Dawkins, frankly don't give a damn about him, my dear. Was PZ interviewed by Stein? If not, why not?
I've claimed no "detailed knowledge" of anything but how a clever promotional campaign can make a stinker of a film a box office hit by generating a lot of bent noses and shouting matches. If you don't know that much, you must be one of those lab rats who doesn't get out much. The more you guys scream and kick and whine and aim your squirt guns at some overblown "enemy" that exists nowhere but in your own minds, the sillier you look and the more people are going to want to see what you've gotten your so-serious selves so silly about.
Is he whining as loudly as PZ is? Somehow, I can't imagine so. Dawkins is nothing if not media savvy these past few years.
Did you ever see the movie Shakes the Clown? Had Bobcat Goldthwait and Robin Williams, but wasn't slated to do very well at the box office. Then somebody alerted the several American and international clown associations that it was some sort of horrible sex, drugs and rock 'n roll slam-fest, so they all got together and staged some colorful protest marches and demonstrations at theaters showing the film. In full costume, big shoes, squirting flowers, yak wigs, rubber noses and all. Brought people out by the thousands to enjoy the parade, and while they were there, a lot of 'em went ahead and saw the movie too.
Looks to me like this time you guys are the clowns. Only Shakes turned out to be a hilarious movie and most of the clowns I know loved it. I don't think they were really as ignorant about their promotional role as y'all pretend to be. Makes me a little suspicious that PZ, et al. aren't that ignorant either. Though the peanut gallery sure might be...
Someone should get paid for all the valuable promo and publicity. I suspect it will not be you.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, moves the world so much as what is said on the commentary for scienceblog.com. We speak, and the Mighty Public listens. Shhhh... they say ... it's people who hang out on the internet... and they're all into SCIENCE!
It is a weighty responsibility. Use it well, my children... do not play into anyone's hands....
FWIW, here's where you can RSVP for the screening:
http://rsvp.getexpelled.com/events/events/rsvp/MGgr7Ke
Oh, definitely liar, Peter. Know when to fold, JB.
What am I "lying" about, rrt? The fact that controversy increases ticket sales? That I understand that concept (and you apparently do not)? That if this is such a throw-away film with a throw-away plot about a throw-away not-scientific metaphysic, the overreaction is suspicious to me?
How do you think Mel Gibson got so many people so excited about a snuff flick? Is it truly unthinkable to you guys that no matter how high up on the scientific authority ladder you (or your heroes) might be, you might be played for fools by people who know more about marketing than you do?
So very weird, here. Carry on, promote this movie to the nth degree, see what good it does. I wasn't that interested in it in the first place. I'm just laughing at the spectacle you've presented at PZ's faux indignation instigation. I doubt he's near a dumb as he's acting about this (since he's now an official actor!), but I could certainly be wrong. Have fun!
It couldn't possibly be you, could it, jb?
Hmmm... Thanks for the suggestion, Brachychiton. Perhaps I'll make Stein & Co. an offer - I won't try to warn the peanut gallery about what fools they are to play along with this game if they'll pay me standard daily consultant fee for the promo project, until the film achieves general release or disappears with a wimper, whichever comes first.
Cool idea. §;o)
Actually, I don't see how this "controversy" could be seen as a benefit for the film. In fact, I highly doubt it'll have any positive impact on ticket sales whatsoever.
It will be released, and then it will be thoroughly and honestly rebutted with arguments grounded in the provable reality as opposed to some supernatural, pseudo-scientific gibberish and paranoia, and the movie will subsequently die a very quick death. If anything, people will simply mock this film as they do the crazed, street-corner preacher in urine soaked trousers screaming about the end of the world.
Is it truly unthinkable to you guys that no matter how high up on the scientific authority ladder you (or your heroes) might be, you might be played for fools by people who know more about marketing than you do?
for the last fucking time, there is no "scientific authority ladder"
sweet plastic jesus on my dashboard, stop with the damn projection already.
It's the PRIMARY LITERATURE that resolves issues, not authority figures.
science is not a religion, and we don't have a fucking church.
Propaganda does not have to influence the beliefs of the masses to be effective--all it has to do is whip the true believers into a frenzy. Even if this movie goes pretty much straight to DVD, it will still have its maximal effect on its target audience: evangelical/fundamentalist Protestant Christians that are starting to feel their grasp on political power slipping away. But they will feel re-energized, and will do their utmost to cause trouble, from local school boards up to Congress. Whether they will gain any traction is debatable.
Peter,
Thanks, I have heard the audio. I forgot about it and was trying to find a text link on the Dawkins site, but with no success.
I forgot to mention that I just got back from seeing Richard at U.C. Berkeley. It was well worth the line and the time; there were plenty of places to applaud and give 'em hell. Richard also got a standing ovation. I doubt that a post-religious world is right around the corner; but, we know that if reason is to survive, it has to come.
In contrast to the hidden movie EXPELLED, A true religious movie was opened to all at the Fargo Film Festival this week: CALL OF CTHULHU, a black & white 40 minute silent film based upon the H.P. Lovecraft story.
Aaah, well JB cleared it all up, they are hiding the movie and trying to up the controversy around their production teams ethics for more attention. Where i come from it's usually better to center the controversy about the content of the movie if you want to convert that attention into cash at the register. I suppose this makes the whole movie about as scientifically rigorous and relevant as that documentary that found those ossuaries with JC's bones in them. In any case, it's news to me that anyone really cares about the financial return of this movie.
Tell us, whats the big deal about the money paid to PZ JB, you've been pointing it out so many times i'm wondering what you are trying to say. Are you suggesting this money is a magical stopgap that makes anything PZ is saying irrelevant or something? Is that how you get treated where you work, want to talk about it?
I found your authoritative explanation on footage sales very enlightening, it's too bad this isn't what happened, but at least you got to trot out another silly argument to display your ignorance to us. I sure it works for you in other settings.
The irony is that FSU, where I taught for 10 years, has an truly outstanding group of evolutionary biologists, including their current Provost (Larry Abele) and current Dean of Arts and Sciences (Joe Travis). Actually Larry hired me back when he was Chair of Biological Sciences. Joe Travis used to describe the Florida Legislature and their approach to higher education as "a bunch of mean drunks".
These days higher education in Florida is getting the shit kicked out of it on many fronts, and it must suck to be trying to figure out how they will survive the latest crap.
I miss both those guys, Joe in particular was one of the best department chairs I have ever seen, but I am glad to be gone from that state.
I have a vague memory that this may not have been the only time where this Discovery thingy run by the two universities has done stuff that is beyond the pale.
jb, grazie for you moderate & very reasonable position.
You were only labeled a liar and a creobot for making the most un-emotional & low key statements.
Should you return here, you may want to be prepared for all manner of hasty & childish name calling masquerading as scientific inference.
JB
I think your hat is due for a re-foiling.
I've yet to see you make a coherent point gerry. You've been pointed to posts that direct squash your rambling insanity yet you keep coming back for more.
Your proud ignorance and unabashed penchant for running at the wall head first with your RPMs pegged is entertaining however, so please continue.
How on earth do you classify JBs assertions that this is all a publicity stunt to create more ticket sales for that production "un-emotional and low key"? You are a deceitful little troll aren't you?
Reverend, Mr Spezio is not intentionally deceitful: he's incoherent and programmed to be sympathetic to any anti-evolutionist.
No, no, no. He's actually amazingly perceptive and able to see the work of zionist yuppie peeyar lawyer nazi framer doctor objecive science artists where the rest of us don't.
Ahh HA! Extra Sensory Stupidity. A rare gift indeed.
Mr Jeff either is in need of more Manischewitz in his matzo balls, or has been tippling too much with Manischewitz to begin with.
On the other hand, maybe I need some more Manischewitz, too.
Mr Jeff either is in need of more Manischewitz in his matzo balls, or has been tippling too much with Manischewitz to begin with.
On the other hand, maybe I need some more Manischewitz, too.
It gets even more fun when I add, "Suck it, motherfucker!"
I can't even attempt to match the spittle and incoherence that follow that.
gerald spezio:
I harbor no illusions about this hovel or its smelly denizens. It's almost fascinating to watch (as psychological pathology), but it's not a place where I'd waste my life playing idiot games with a megalomaniacal hob-goblin or his wayward fairy fan club. It has nothing to do with "science" - Seed knows that, but just like the Expelled investors, they're raking in the dough this train wreck generates.
It just struck me funny that these fanatics are so willing to throw themselves onto the tracks for Fearless Leader, who is busy cowering in a dark corner screaming in terror at closet monsters and banshees that haunt his waking dreams. Hardly the noble liege for whom one should throw away a life, but lives are cheap in this world. There's always more...
If you've got any sense you'll extricate yourself from the sewage. If not, you've no reason to expect any pity. You're feeding their frenzy.
Is coming to this blog to post rubbish - in the sure and certain knowledge that you'll be verbally beaten up for it - the latest cheap substitute for crucifixion?
Why are you still here, JB? You've been pointed toward the resources that neuter your insipid assertions. At this point, what could you possibly add to this conversation other than: "I was wrong?"
See that's the difference, no one here is giving our lives to any silly religion. Agreeing with someone who has a blog with a reasonable amount of traffic when he points out the stupidity and deceit a group of film makers is not throwing away a life. You making that claim is pure projection.
It is possible to match jb's and Mr Spezio's nonsensical frothings, but, it involves slamming your thumb in a cardoor and locking the car for 15 seconds.
Well you know, they just want to make science a safe place for questions to be asked--until the moment that ID arrives and completely supplants science, skepticism, and the rules of evidence.
And if such a blessed state can be artificially produced before science is totally gutted, in furtherance of that goal, so be it. The propaganda which they so carefully guard from being critiqued and vetted by those competetn to do so will have to be put before the mostly scientifically uninformed legislature.
It is to be hoped that a few better-informed legislators, and some legislators who have the decency to be offended at Expelled's exploitation of the victims of the Gulag and the Holocaust, will rake this venomous pack of lies for being the evil propaganda that it is. That it is "heavy-handed" to say the least should be recognizable by most legislators. Nevertheless, it is hard to believe that the politics of the situation will not generally favor the liars, especially since the primary targets of that movie are the ignorant and the prejudiced.
Does one really wish to stand up to the mob mentality that is the main purpose of producing Expelled? We will have to do our best to make those who facilitate mob stupidity pay for their wretched kowtowing to idiocy and lies.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Hehe.
Oh you angry scientists.
As Vox Day says:
'...it's generally not left to the condemned to judge the case against him on its merits.'
Call it propaganda if you want, but there is more than one way to deal with Scientist Priests when they stifle the debate when it doesn't agree with their orthodoxy.
Get used to it.
"We will have to do our best to make those who facilitate mob stupidity pay for their wretched kowtowing to idiocy and lies."
Angry angry words.
I am so impressed by the cool, dispassionate rationality.
"Call it propaganda if you want, but there is more than one way to deal with Scientist Priests when they stifle the debate when it doesn't agree with their orthodoxy"
Quit projecting.
No, there really is only one way. Well, one valid and honest way: provide evidence.
There are plenty of invalid and dishonest ways, of course. Propaganda is one invalid and dishonest way. What are the others? Deliberate fraud? Gibbering insanity? Yeah, seen lots of that.
The "debate" will begin as soon as Intelligent Design proponents provide actual evidence to support their claims. That they have never demonstrated a willingness to support their own claims with actual evidence does not equate "suppression" or even "stifling."
You fail realize that you will never succeed in a competition of any kind if you attempt to win by refusing to abide by the rules of the competition.
So please explain how Intelligent Design "theory" is going to benefit when the makers of "Expelled" lied to the scientists they interviewed, and why did the makers of "Expelled" claim that evolution inspired both Nazism and Stalinism and not provide any evidence of how it happened?
That's not an option for Intelligent Design proponents, Owlmirror. Otherwise, they would be incapable of claiming suppression and persecution if they let everyone find out how incompetent they really are.
Dear fuckhead,
I don't pretend in the least to be cool and dispassionate regarding the attempts by your side to tell colossal lies, smear everyone who doesn't agree with them, and to destroy both Constitution and the Englightenment rationality that inspired same (and actually, I am rather more cool in my mind than in my rhetoric, which I tailor to counter the stupidity of people such as yourself). You're an evil malingering dishonest piece of shit, and I mean to use everything, from rationality to a just anger, to counteract your viciousness, stupidity, evil, and dishonesty.
Assholes like you cannot be reasoned with, they have dealt with using the little that they know, epithets and emotionality. With the wise I use wise words, with fools I turn to language and emotions that are all that they understand.
You evil swine want us to be ivory tower figures who will ignore your stupidity and dishonesty, or to coolly and calmly respond to it in such a way that seems to the idiots to support the very lies with which you began. Screw that and fuck you, disingenous dumbfuck, I mean for honesty to win, and for dumbshits like yourself to be treated like the scum of the earth that you are.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Wow, you know something's about to go wrong when someone starts off with "As Vox Day says."
Ladies & gents; for what it is worth, I am as committed & passionate an evolutionist and worshipper of Darwin as any human on the planet.
Es verdad! C'est vrai!
I would assume that this data (no fibbering either) would moderate any attacks that I would support any anti-evolutionary claims.
Childish inference machines asserting the most preposterous conclusions routinely grind on at Pharyngula without rest.
I do not know what db believes about evolution or Darwin.
I merely concluded that db's claim was a reasonable inference from the data supplied.
Simply stated, db thinks that Stein is very probabilistically marketing his foul framing wares in a surreptitous fashion, and I agree.
Glen D,
I wonder if you had anything worth saying, but I'll never know 'cos I only got as far as 'Dear Fuckhead', and realized that you must be a teenager.
And as for others talking about ID needing to provide some evidence, well your subjective, self protecting peer review system puts a stop to that.
I'm not even an ID fan, I have no problem with evolution (except that you need a new model, and the meeting of the 16 may well provide it), but I have been disgusted by some of the tactics that the evolutionists have employed - refusing people tenure etc.
You deserve what you get if the ID folks decide to go straight to the public - you never engaged with them.
"And as for others talking about ID needing to provide some evidence, well your subjective, self protecting peer review system puts a stop to that."
When you have no evidence claim conspiracy.
Pathetic.
That's why I use language like that with slime such as yourself, you have no intelligence, your "judgments" are only so much moralizing, you're totally dishonest, and you don't even recognize what a stupid and dishonest attack that you made against me in the first place.
But as you're too stupid to read properly, and opposed to learning, I'll let it go after this post. The fact is that I made good points, you simply bleated your mindless reaction, and now you lie about myself and continue to bleat with your concern trolling.
Just go on wanking off in public, it seems to be as intelligent a thing as you can do. "Blacknad" appears to an apt appellation for a wanker such as yourself.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
No, it doesn't. How could it? If some "ID" proponent had some actual reproducible evidence, anyone would be able to replicate the tests and receive the same results. Why would it be suppressed?
Tenure is not a right. Tenure is quite literally a privilege. In order to earn tenure, a scholar must meet whatever standards an institution has. If said scholar doesn't meet those standards, the institution has the right to not grant tenure.
Once someone has tenure, it's a different story.
PZ Myers, the fire-breathing atheist evolutionary biologist who maintains this blog, has even argued in favor of not revoking the tenure of those who advocate "ID" (if all they have done is advocate "ID", that is). He's completely in favor of academic freedom, even if he loudly proclaims that the academic (or academy) is utterly and completely insane.
Undoubtedly, Owlmirror, we also managed to snatch all the original research on its way to the creationist journals.
Glen D,
I wouldn't be surprised if you have aspergers.
You would do well to get yourself checked out.
And I'm not concern trolling - I just feel glee that you will be getting your arses kicked in the public square. I can see why you're spitting feathers.
Very, very funny.
The Peer Review system guarantees academic honesty as well as check for errors. You can not claim that peer review is hindering your scientific career if you refuse to present your evidence in the first place. Intelligent Design proponents insist on claiming that Intelligent Design "theory" is a science, however, they have not demonstrated how their "theory" can explain the diversity of life better than the theory of Evolution, nor have they demonstrated even a desire to make any scientific contribution.
Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure because he demonstrated that he was not interested in doing research, he demonstrated that he was not interested in getting grant money for his department, and he was mentoring very few graduate students, if any at all.
In other words, the university board is not legally obligated to grant an unproductive, unmotivated professor tenure in the exact same way Starbuck's is not legally obligated to hire a person who is allergic to caffeine as a barista.
Yes, the octopus conspiracy of international evolutionary biology has tentacles that extend everywhere -- ALL postal systems, ALL telephone exchanges, yes, even (da-da-DUM) teh INTERNETS!
Wait, how did we let the material for Expelled slip through our tentacles?
Was Homer Simpson in charge of the controls again? All he does is eat donuts and nap! Damnation!
I am so impressed by the cool, dispassionate rationality.
no, being sheeple is all on you morons.
nobody ever said rationality had to be dispassionate.
what's even more tiresome than watching you idiots draw strawmen with fingerpaints and chalk, is when you pretend you know anything about science.
JB is one of THOSE morons.
"And as for others talking about ID needing to provide some evidence, well your subjective, self protecting peer review system puts a stop to that."
what about the so called "peer reviewed" journals started by your own brand of idiots?
have you ever bothered to look to those for your evidence?
no?
gee, I wonder why not...
you sheeple are such extreme retards it's amazing you can function on a daily basis.
don't forget to breathe, now.
Call it propaganda if you want, but there is more than one way to deal with Scientist Priests when they stifle the debate when it doesn't agree with their orthodoxy.
and stop projecting your own authority-based worldview, while you're at it (yeah, I know that's like asking you to give up breathing).
You deserve what you get if the ID folks decide to go straight to the public - you never engaged with them.
now there are only two choices here, you are either lying, or as ignorant as one could possibly be of the actual reality of the situation.
Hey, fuckhead - we "engaged" your arguments on an absolutely fair playing field (a court of law), and you morons have lost EVERY time, the most recent being Kitzmiller.
care to try for another?
the only thing that's funnier than your ignorance of science is your ignorance of history.
you people keep shooting yourselves in the head... over and over and over again.
gerry-
nobody cares what you think.
just go away.
Thus demonstrating your obvious sadism.
Fortunately, Expelled will have no impact on science itself.
Glen D, just wanted to say, I loved your response at 184. It really does get tiring reading messages from people who have nothing but disgust about the theory of evolution yet have nothing new to say and expect to be treated courteously. I think it should become the stock answer when rude creationists accuse us of being rude.
I also find it funnier then hell they call the likes of you a groveller at PZ's feet. All I can say is they are not regular readers here.
But what of those who thinks 'the tides come in, the tides go out, the Sun go up, the Sun go down' is science?
Thanks Janine.
There really must be a sense among the IDiots that we can be destroyed because we won't fight back with everything possible, short of their own dishonesty. And oh yes, that we're being ruled by anger if we craft our words to match their own idiocy and pre-emptive dishonest smears against us.
Neither is at all true, as any honest and intelligent person reading these forums can tell.
Then too, I think that PZ and I would have a less rocky history here and on other forums, if either of us were inclined to agree with the other. Though we seem to more or less live and let live now, and have for some time.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Whenever Glen and Professor Myers agree on something it's so boring, it makes my teeth hurt.
In fact, I have a link of the last time they "agreed to agree."
So Stanton, which one is Booberella?
If you haven't kept up with either Professor Myers' or Glen Davidson's extracurricular activities, do you honestly think I'm going to spoil the surprise so easily?
Glen @ 184,
Thank you, I've never known quite how to put that thought, you've done well.
Blacknad, you need some more colorful language if you're going to match the masterful performace art of Mr. Keith Eaton.
Otherwise, you just bring the same tiresome myopia. They make a film, severely restrict who can see the film and review it before its release date, and then you claim that somehow WE are "stifling the debate". Yada yada yada.
Oh, and also, fuckhead fuckhead fuckhead. I know how you guys love the abuse.
Rey, you gave me an idea! I should become a dominatrix who specializes in creationists. Bad boys get spanked! I could stifle their claims with a ball gag. Hey, I love pretending.
Ok, from now on sign your comments "Janine, ID"
(That stands for "Intelligent Dominatrix").
I should become a dominatrix who specializes in creationists
i hear that's how Jeff Gannon got his Press Corp job.
I should become a dominatrix who specializes in creationists
i hear that's how Jeff Gannon got his Press Corp job.
*twitch... twitch...runs to bathroom*
sorry Jeff, I know that guy is a total demented fuckwit.
didn't mean to give you nightmares.
...and to avoid any confusion for those who don't know who "Jeff Gannon" is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Gannon
anybody who uses terminology like "Angry Gay Left", is obviously repressed, republican, and gay.
Well, it was either that, or giving him the mental image of Ann Coulter getting a lapdance from Newt Gingrich.
Ben Stein an expelled trailer, "People who are confident in their ideas are not afraid of criticism." Isn't that ironic.
Ben Stein in an expelled trailer, "People who are confident in their ideas are not afraid of criticism." Isn't that ironic.
Well, it was either that, or giving him the mental image of Ann Coulter getting a lapdance from Newt Gingrich.
Actually, the worst part is that Chris Crane, the idiot editor of the Washington Blade (the DC Gay Paper)--and several other gay publications--gave the fuckwit column space. He gay regular space to a man who had never no expertise on gay issues, no experience covering them, no history as an activist working for queer rights. Nope, he got a column because, well.....just because Crane was one more Republican power-sucker looking out for another self-loather. Gotta love contacts like that. Failure is impossible.
anybody who uses terminology like "Angry Gay Left", is obviously repressed, republican, and gay.
Or talking about me and about 7 other people. Not a really powerful constituency.
Well, it was either that, or giving him the mental image of Ann Coulter getting a lapdance from Newt Gingrich.
if that's not a call for this link, I don't know what is...
http://ifuckedanncoulterintheasshard.blogspot.com/
do read the sequel:
http://backinanncoultersasssaddleagain.blogspot.com/
he got a column because, well.....just because Crane was one more Republican power-sucker looking out for...
a dominatrix?
Please consider signing my petition for getting it right in Florida with the new K-12 science standards...thanks! {and ignore the ads, please! :)}
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/flhouse-science/
Ichthyic: I don't think head shots do anything to ID advocates, since their arguments show a lack of cerebral output. I don't think chest shots do anything, either, because they can't believe what they say and remain as dishonest as they are. So their shooting themselves in the head doesn't really do anyone any good. If they want to achieve something of value, they could follow Michael Biehn's immortal words: "Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
"I've heard my part is so unmemorable and negligible that I probably got substantially less than that. Do notice in all the ravings about me on the expelled blog that they never once cite anything that I actually said. Curious, that. "
PZ, no need to worry at all, Dawkins is the one who should be sweating bullets. Yes, your part is very small in the final cut (I would think less than a minute, but nobody other than Dawkins got much) and to the average viewer, your part was probably quite forgettable. BUT, I'm
telling you PZ, this movie is your ticket to the top! You should be thanking Mark Mathis and Ben Stein and sending them flowers, and popping corks! To someone who is reasonably familiar with the players, you come off looking like the only sane atheist in the movie. I can't tell you
how bad Richard looks in this movie. Richard's stock is going to fall hard and fast. Yours is headed for the stars. You could be the next Dawkins real soon if you play your cards right.
So Mr. Dawkins-to-be, do you likewise think that it is possible that life on earth may be the result of intelligent design, and do you think that it may be possible to detect whether life on earth was designed by
intelligence?
"You do know that science requires more than unfounded speculations plucked from the shadowy recesses of one's nether cheeks, right?"
Yes I know that, that's why I objected to Dawkins unfounded speculations about the origin of life in his book (which I still think I did a good job of summarizing from memory - what substantive difference do you see?). Being a biologist, this is somewhat outside your field, but it is foolish to think that life may arise on ANY old planet. There is a reason why you haven't, and probably will never hear of attempts to find life on any of our solar system's planets other than Mars. And we can
surmise certain life un-friendly conditions in the other planetary systems that have been detected, and many other presumed planetary systems that we haven't detected. So we can say with high confidence that the gluteal-lined cache from which Mr. Dawkins drew his numbers isn't a warehouse of scientific knowledge.
And the stupid just keeps on comin'...
And the stupid just keeps on comin'...
actually, they have no choice in the matter, unless they decide to actually seek psychological counseling instead of spewing ever more inane attempts at defending nonsense.
so indeed, expect the stupid to not just keep coming, but to get even more ridiculous and frantic as one projection after another is exposed.
and, of course, a few of them will crack entirely, projection will be replaced by displacement behaviors, and you will find them shooting up their peers, loved ones, and themselves.
or else giving up entirely and becoming zombies for use as little more than suicide bombers.
It's only going to get worse, but it needs to be done. We as a society need to push past the irrationality and defense mechanisms; push past all the cults and gangs that utilize religion as a tool to shape others to their will. Dawkins is right that it's time to get past this shit, but it goes far beyond just religion; religion is just a tool to maintain ignorance and make it easier to control large groups of people. It's the people themselves that have to give up the idea that "ignorance is bliss".
I think eventually, it WILL happen. It just takes so damn long...
Me, there is no such thing as a "science program"; such a term does not exist. The question is whether ID is science.
Let's see. How do cdesign proponentsists explain Stupid Design?
------------------------------------
On the improbability argument, remember that Earth already had continents and oceans 4.4 billion years ago, yet the oldest possible traces of life known so far are only 3.85 billion years old. I'm sure you agree that a lot can happen in 550 million years!
------------------------------------
And, gerald, do you find it very hard to stay on topic?