creationism
gregladen | April 29, 2008Expelled!, the so called documentary, has a web site on MySpace. Recently they ran a poll asking if Intelligent Design should be taught in schools or not. The results of that poll overwhelming indicate "no" ... with 420 thousand "nay" votes and fewer than one thousand in favor of violating the tenets of the Constitution of the United States of America.
So The Expelled! web site meisters removed the poll.
Of coruse, they are not that smart, so they kinda screwed it up. You will be interested to know that the poll is still located here.
I'm getting tired of this unpatriotic crap.
tfk | April 29, 2008Expelled is a really, truly, awful movie. Even setting aside its errors and its Holocaust nigh-denial, it's just a badly assembled bit of cinema. It's offensive and absurd to compare the events of the Cold War to the treatment of the supposed martyrs: the folks who variously were called bad names, didn't get tenure because they didn't publish research or get grants, the one who didn't get a new contract after failing to live up to the previous one, etc. People starved behind the Berlin Wall. They were sent to Siberia, and not in any figurative sense.
It's doubly offensive for Stein to…
razib | April 29, 2008John Derbyshire has a long column excoriating Ben Stein and the Discovery Institute titled A Blood Libel on Our Civilization:
And there is science, perhaps the greatest of all our achievements, because nowhere else on earth did it appear. China, India, the Muslim world, all had fine cities and systems of law, architecture and painting, poetry and prose, religion and philosophy. None of them ever accomplished what began in northwest Europe in the later 17th century, though: a scientific revolution. Thoughtful men and women came together in learned societies to compare notes on their…
gregladen | April 29, 2008The Florida House yesterday voted to require teachers to criticize evolution when teaching the subject in Florida public schools. The house version of the bill will now, most likely, travel back to the Senate (where a similar bill, was recently passed). Governor Charlie Crist is not talking about whether or not he will sign the bill.
"What this bill does is tell the teacher, go ahead and teach the theory of evolution and make sure your students have a complete view of that theory and they know that it is only a theory, it is not gospel law," said Rep. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla. "There's no…
gregladen | April 29, 2008
Second commandment: Try not to be a moron.
(FYI: observed instances of speciation)
Hat Tip: TUIBG and Julia
gregladen | April 28, 2008This is described in UDreamOfJanie:
Ronda R. Storms is a Florida sate senator (Republican) who has spearheaded efforts against Planned Parenthood, against her local LGBTA community, and so on, is now linked to the Discovery Institute in regards to her latest project, the Florida "Academic Freedom" bill.
In regards to Academic Freedom, Storms ...
...took the age-old ethical high-road known as 'Lying for Jesus'. She insists that this bill is about the freedom to inquire about all `scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution…
laelaps | April 28, 2008As I've said elsewhere, I think that the idea that creationists are master communicators is a myth; they are successful because they are tapping into a religious majority that is feeling antagonized and marginalized by secular culture. Even though most of the population of this country would identify themselves as Christians, some members of the faithful feel like they are continuously under attack by scientists, liberals, homosexuals, etc., their desire to "reclaim the country for Christ" being hindered by a minority of secular elitists.
Indeed, the film Expelled is little more than an…
grrlscientist | April 28, 2008tags: Richard Dawkins, Beware the Believers, religious fundamentalism, evolution, streaming video
This amusing streaming video is a rockin' version of Richard Dawkins' expertise [3:57].
pharyngula | April 28, 2008Edmondson is one of the creators of the "Beware the Believers" video, and this interview continues the pattern—he's intriguingly ambiguous.
gregladen | April 27, 2008With all this talk about Expelled!, the creationist movie, I thought it was about time to resurrect the review I wrote many moons ago of Flock of Dodos by Randy Olson, along with some updated information.
Flock of Dodos is a much better film than Expelled!, and explores the same issue, with somewhat different conclusions. So, for instance, if you are going to use one of them in a school or church to explain the ID/Evolution controversy, I recommend Flock.
(That's a picture of Randy with some big birds at the Tribeca Film Festival.) Plus, since its been out a bit longer, Flock of Dodos is…
gregladen | April 27, 2008This page is designed for teachers, pastors, youth leaders and organizations to provide useful tools and resources to promote the ideas surrounding this highly anticipated film.
You can get Expelled! movie clips to show in your life science class. This site has many movies designed for Christian teachers to use in the classroom... The developers of the side have
... made showing movie clips fast and convenient for anyone to use. It's as simple as a click of a button. Also, we custom edit clips to better illustrate specific points. For instance, we might delete a portion of a scene, combine…
evolvingthoughts | April 27, 2008
In the thread on the recent debate between Winston and Dennett, I said that I thought the greatest threat to scientific progress and rationality was antimodernism, which was not always religious. Here, I'm going to elaborate on that cryptic comment.
First of all, some of my commenters think that this doesn't rule out religion being the threat. It may still be the major source of illiberalism, and I cannot deny that, but I think the problem lies not in the instantiation of the antimodernism, but in the psychology that underlies it. For religious ideas would have no issue if they did not…
pharyngula | April 27, 2008
What a vile little man. I sincerely hope that his career is dead now … and that the rest of his life will be spent eking out speaking fees at Christian fundamentalist conventions, before audiences who will cheer him while dreaming of the day the Jews are exterminated or converted, bringing on Armageddon.
(If this isn't enough punishment for you, the complete, unedited interview on TBN is here.)
pharyngula | April 27, 2008This is some email I suspect a lot of you have already received; look at it through new eyes, though.
It's from Premise Media (I'm on their mailing list, and have been for a long time…how else could I have gotten an invitation to their premiere?), and I present it here as I received it, except that I stripped out most of the links. Notice anything familiar?
Ben Stein's movie is now in danger of being “Expelled” from theaters
Despite:A “Top 10” box office opening…
Standing ovations in theaters…
Scathing critics and raving fans…
Expelled is being sued by YOKO ONO – and she's demanding that…
tfk | April 25, 2008David Klinghoffer complains about responses to his Hitler-praising column. He links to this blog four times, despite the fact that I only wrote about him twice (three times once I post this). His complaint:
By these Darwinist propagandists, it is asserted that I agree that “Hitler was right about the Jews,” … Not a bit of which is remotely true. Obviously.
Obviously, I was simply responding to Klinghoffer's claim that "Hitler understood something about Judaism that even many Jews today don’t grasp," that "Hitler’s insight into Judaism [is] … a profound theme in rabbinic literature," and to…
gregladen | April 25, 2008
"Teaching Creationism in Schools," the second in a series of videos produced by NCSE, debuted at expelledexposed.com on April 23, 2008. The brief video presents three incidents in which NCSE helped concerned citizens to resist assaults on the integrity of evolution education. In the video, NCSE's Eugenie C. Scott explains: "If we're going to have good science education, now and in the future, we have to support people like Erec [Hillis], people like the citizens of Dover, and people like the citizens in Kansas, and we have to put out those brushfires. And NCSE is going to be there until…
pharyngula | April 25, 2008That former blot upon the fine educational system of Minnesota has ended up at "Harding University, a private Christian school in Searcy, Ark. She'll be the dean of graduate programs and an associate professor of education.". Good for her, and at least now her damage is limited to only 6,000 students at a time, rather than a whole state's worth.
gregladen | April 25, 2008A new poll asks "Do you think the thoery of Intelligent Design should be taught in our education system? Respondents to this on line poll were given the options: Yes, No, Not Sure, and What is it?
The results show that nearly 90 percent of respondents oppose teaching ID in schools.
Almost no one was unsure, and just under six percent claim to not know what ID is.
The poll was conducted by Expelled The Movement, a MySpace group.
[source]
gregladen | April 25, 2008Pharyngula exhorts us to crash a poll on Intelligent Design. It is here. down on the lower left side. About eight hours ago, when PZ discovered the poll, the pro-intelligent design vote was overwhelming. Now, for some reason, the anti-intelligent design vote is overwhelming. So your vote is not needed, but you can still feel like part of the process.
Go. There. Now. But come back, I'll miss you.