Pounding a stake in the corpse

I'm surprised anyone even cares about this silly movie anymore.

We all know of that photo of moron Stein standing before the statue of the great Charles Darwin, whose stone shoes he is not worthy to lick. I would love to be a ventriloquist behind a nearby pillar and mouth off, "Your deranged movie didn't do so well did, you demented moron? Ha, ha, ha!"

It is quite humorous to me when I look at the contrast between the hype that creationists injected into the publicity of this movie prior to its release and the quickness with which they now dismiss it entirely. Typical.

"FREE MINDS AND FREE MARKETS"

I'm guessing this isn't the online mag for me.

A handful of theaters are still showing this blockbuster. I won't celebrate, however, until the last two antievolution bills submitted in its wake bite the dust.

A woodchipper?

Just how close to fargo are you?

I call dibs on the flamethrower!

A new question for the Disco Institute

- True or False: The Center for Renewal of Science and Culture was founded in 1996

- True or False: The Center has spent tens of millions of dollars since that time.

- True or False: The Center has not conducted a single experiment.

Note, "interpreting" research doesn't count. I am talking about a hypothesis - design experiment - test hypothesis chain.

With $12 million and 12 years, they couldn't come up with a single experiment? 'Nuff said.

Mmmm... Garlic and steak.

As for what to do with that movie, I think we should just let it gurgle and die. It's almost summer, and I've got better things to think about.

For example, marbles. I'm going to think about marbles and not that odious little truth-killing snuff-film.

Holbach wrote: I would love to be a ventriloquist behind a nearby pillar and mouth off, "Your deranged movie didn't do so well did, you demented moron? Ha, ha, ha!"
____

Would this do? (In case you missed this)

http://eclectech.co.uk/b3ta/darwinstein.gif.html

But, but, the movie was a success! You know, because it had "Bad to the Bone" in its preview! Its previews were aired during "The Daily Show"! It reached a built-in audience of thousands! Uh, why aren't you guys making an evolutionist response movie? Huh? Huh?

And always position the wood chipper so it sprays over a catfish farm pond. Never mind how I know. Move along, nothing to see here.

Ciao y'all

Logicel @ 10 Yes, saw that one; hell, I wish Chuck had used a marble club!

"Ron Bailey is a bit late to the funeral..."

In all fairness, this is a reprint in the print edition of Reason that originally appeared on their WWW site, April 16.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/125988.html

Ron metaphorically staked it with dead wood (paper), but where's the actual stake? Or steak? Garlic? Onions? Butter? Olive oil? Pepper? Wine? (Or tartare for the purists?) And buried under a busy crossroad? Nah, Ben steinferatu is still stalking the planet, attacking innocent minds, and creating mindless mythombies.

What was the total take? Around 8mil from the theaters?

This is still important. I know (reasonably) intelligent people who are not educated about the evolution vs. creation controversy and are easily swayed by the garbage that creationists generate. If you know nothing, it sounds reasonable, and they sound like an authority.

Thus, it is very important to denounce their lies and educate the un-educated about this issue. We've tried appeasing the anti-intellectualism movement, and it does not work. This nonsense must be confronted and refuted.

Just wait until the fanfare for the inevitable DVD release.

Just over $7.5 mil, last I checked. Hasn't broken even if you factor in the estimated promotion costs.

Anyone care to estimate how long it will be before we start seeing the DVD in the overstock bin at the local video store?

PZ cozying up to the Adam Smith crowd? - linking to "free minds and free markets"? A little help here, please. Anyone?

We must return to the ship and nuke the film from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

A juxtaposition in the review unstuck one of my synapses.

Darwin's theory is a necessary though not sufficient condition for eugenics and Nazism.

The Earth has to be just this distance from the sun to make scientists (hence Darwin) possible.

Ergo, a correctly placed Earth is a necessary though not sufficient condition for eugenics.

Which part of the movie made this connection?

Re #22. Hmm. Since we know God placed the Earth where it is, we conclude that God's a Nazi eugenicist. Can't say I'm surprised.

I saw the link went to Reason and declined to click. Hell if I'm going to give that crowd any of my eye-time.

For what it's worth, homostoicus, Adam Smith would be embarrassed by the Randroids at Reason.

Just over $7.5 mil, last I checked. Hasn't broken even if you factor in the estimated promotion costs.

It was $7.614 million as of the last report. (May 29). At that point it had been losing more about half its screens and two thirds of its revenues each week for a couple of weeks. (Down to 41 screens and only making a few thousand dollars a day nationwide.) It was asymptotically approaching something under $7.7 million gross, so probably about 3 or 4 million net, depending on the cut they got.

It cost 3.5 million to make and "a multiple of that" to market, so presumably somewhere upwards of 10.5 million, and at least 6 million in the red.

Some movies do net considerably more in DVD sales than at the theaters, so it's possible this turd could make money. I'm skeptical, though, given its rapid exponential decay after a big opening weekend. (It's hard for a movie that opens in 1000 theaters to do worse. Attendance dropped by over half for each of the first three weeks, and then by about two thirds for the next three.)

Basically, they paid through the nose for a big opening weekend, got horribly panned, and people stayed away in droves. Word of mouth did not help them counter the negative reviews, as they predicted it would. (They had exit polls saying that 96 percent of people seeing the movie would recommend it. Maybe so, but I guess nobody takes those people's recommendations seriously.)

Here are the figures for the first 6 weeks.

Which part of the movie made this connection?

Posted by: Voracious | June 9, 2008 9:01 AM

Though I haven't seen the movie, if you want to hear a truly hilarious treatment of the difference between necessary and sufficient causes, just search on this blog for the thread in which Mark Mathis did an interview with (I believe) Scientific American. It was a roundtable discussion between Mathis and a small group that immediately followed a screening of Expelled. (I can't for the life of me remember their names, but I'm sure someone can point towards the location of the mp3 file.)

Mathis gets dragged through the dirt in trying to defend the movie's emphasis that Darwin's theory was a necessary condition for the Holocaust, without actually pointing out that the conditions that truly factor in any situation are the sufficient ones.

For what it's worth, homostoicus, Adam Smith would be embarrassed by the Randroids at Reason.

I'll take your word that you know what Adam Smith would be embarrassed about. Nevertheless Reason is not an Objectivist magazine. Libertarian? Of course. Randroid? A bit of a stretch.

#22 I have to disagree. Nazism and eugenics is based on the believe that one group of people is superior to another based on physical characteristics. That's possible without Darwinism because similar attitudes are found in religion and religious based racism. "God made the white people better" "Those people are inferior. God gave them funny noses." etc.

Martin Luthor didn't need Darwin to write his On the Jews and Their Lies, so I really fail to see how Hitler would need Darwin.

Re: #26

Here's the SciAm page with the mp3 links.

Some movies do net considerably more in DVD sales than at the theaters, so it's possible this turd could make money.

But not from DVDs. Expelled can be summed up in one sentence. Darwinist zombies known as scientists killed the Jews.

Why bother to see a 90 minute film rather than read a 5 second sentence? The movie was just propaganda, they probably don't care much if they make money. I suspect a lot of DVDs will be produced and given away right and left to anyone that wants one.

Expelled is destined for late night xian broadcasting TV and wingnut church basements. It's basically a clone of From Darwin to Hitler and that one didn't do well either.

I don't trust anything in Reason magazine ever since PZ declared it full of "thick tarry fecal sludge". Ergo, Expelled must not be so bad after all.

Well, "Expelled" is still hanging on at one screen of one theater in the Minneapolis/St Paul metro area. A far suburb. Remind me not to go there.

I still can't find a working torrent for it. If a movie doesn't get pirated, you [i]know[/i] it is bad.

Rumors of Expelled's demise are greatly exagerrated. They're about to release in Canada, and the Yoko victory has freed them to do a DVD release in the fall. Better hold off on that funeral, PZ.