creationism
gregladen | April 17, 2008The Seattle Times, which as far as I know is a regular newspaper, has published a guest editorial by Bruce Chapman in their opinion section.
Chapman has published a lot of editorials in the Seattle Times, and in sum, they make him look like (I'm just sayin') he's on the payroll of both Microsoft and the Discovery Institute
His editorial is loaded with the usual creationist crap ... claims that Darwin was forced on him in college, noting Haeckel's embryos, quote mining from Dawkins, etc.
...Darwinists have avoided debates, and in universities have stooped to denial of academic tenure,…
pharyngula | April 16, 2008This is just getting weirder and weirder. What kind of dummies are behind Expelled, anyway? First they lied about the premise of their movie to get interviews; then they copied Harvard/XVIVO's cell animations; then they
threatened XVIVO with a lawsuit; now it turns out that they're using music from John Lennon and The Killers without permission, stirring the ire of Yoko Ono. It's total legal chaos, as far as I'm concerned, and I'm not going to even guess how any of it will turn out. Is the movie industry always this rife with sneakiness and dishonesty?
Anyway, no matter how the lawyers dance…
clock | April 16, 2008If everyone links to Expelled Exposed by using the term Expelled, perhaps we can move it up to #1 on Google:
gregladen | April 16, 2008At this moment (noonish central time, April 16th) if you type "Expelled" into a google search, the results in order are:
1: The expelled movie site.
2: Another page on the expelled movie dite
3: The wikipedia entry for Expelled
4: A blog by PZ Myers at Pharyngula for when he got expelled from Expelled
5: The National Center for Science Education site Expelled Exposed.
laelaps | April 16, 2008
They just keep coming. A few hours ago I posted about a lukewarm review of Expelled that appeared on the Variety website, and rottentomatoes.com has pointed me to a few more reviews of the film. A Slant review by Nick Schager skewers the film for the hypocrisy within it;
For a film about American freedom of expression and the necessity for open dialogue, it's hard to imagine Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed being more one-sided, narrow-minded, and intellectually dishonest. Co-written by and starring actor and former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein, this "documentary" investigation into the…
laelaps | April 16, 2008
So far most of the reviews that have popped up about Expelled have been negative, and the creators of the film have increasingly come under fire for plagiarizing cgi-reconstructions of the cell from two sources (even though the company that produced the film has now filed suit, claiming that the accusations are egregious and just part of the "Darwinist machine" trying to keep them down.). A review of the film by Justin Chang on the Variety webpage, however, is more sympathetic;
There's an intelligent case to be made for intelligent design, which is why "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," a…
gregladen | April 15, 2008The following video is on the NCSE Expelled Exposed web site, but that site is getting so much use it is broken! So enjoy the video while we wait for ExpelledExposed to come back up...
Expelled exposed is here.
pharyngula | April 15, 2008How stupid can they get? First it's discovered that the makers of the stupid propaganda movie were stealing some of their cell animations from XVIVO, and now it is revealed that other segments were ripped off from PBS. It's as if there isn't a single bit of creativity in the whole movie — they can't even lie imaginatively.
In related news, here's something really weird. Expelled is suing XVIVO! Oh, and take note of the bizarre complaint that I've put in bold in the middle of this freaky press release:
Premise Media is ready to challenge the unfounded copyright infringement claims asserted…
gregladen | April 15, 2008I've already announced to you, twice, the emergence of a new web site called "Expelled Exposed" developed by the National Center for Science Education. Chances are you already went and looked at the site.
But, as of a few minutes ago, the site has been totally refined and updated. The site that is now up at www.expelledexposed.com is presumably the intended product, and it is quite different from, more extensive, more informative, fancier, than the earlier site. So if you looked at the one-page site I had sent you to before, please go back and have a second look. There is much more to be…
pharyngula | April 15, 2008On the non-necessity of evolving large brains:
It requires big brains and they in turn demand lots of protein, which, outside modern yuppie societies, generally means meat. As the late evolutionary paleontologist Jack Sepkoski used to say: "I see intelligence as just one of a variety of adaptations among tetrapods for survival. Running fast in a herd while being as dumb as shit, I think, is a very good adaptation for survival."
(from a review of an interesting book.)
gregladen | April 15, 2008"Academic Freedom" bills seem to come in two flavors: Those that protect students from the possibility of learning certain things, and those that protect subversive teachers from getting in trouble for being bad teachers. In both cases, they are bills typically introduced into state legislatures by conservative republicans expressing concern with the Liberal Bias. There is a vague institutional connection between the concept of Academic Freedom Bills and the organization founded by conservative David Horowitz, "Students for Academic Freedom." The motto of this organization is "You can't…
pharyngula | April 15, 2008Don't just link to the Expelled Exposed web site, read it! A whole bunch of new content has gone live, including this video of Chris Comer.
One of the more effective parts is the truth behind Expelled, which goes one by one through the cases of "expelled" creationists, and shows that they weren't — the quality of a good persecution has gone down considerably since the days of Romans with lions, I guess.
evolvingthoughts | April 15, 2008
In an amazing display of misjudgment, Paul Newall of the (otherwise) excellent site The Galilean Library has interviewed me about my views on the philosophy of biology. There are some serious folk interviewed there, so of course I feel like a fraud, but hey, you all know I love the "sound" of my own voice. There's also a lot of interesting material there for those who want to know more about the history and philosophy of science, and history and philosophy in general. Go visit it even if you don't want to hear more of your favorite silverback.
tfk | April 14, 2008ExpelledExposed.com, your one-stop-shop for rebuttals of Ben Stein's creationist hackery, is live, baby! Learn the dirty truth behind Expelled!
And it features NCSE's first foray onto Youtube!
tfk | April 14, 2008Tomorrow, NCSE is putting out a comprehensive response to the crockumentary called "Expelled: No Intelligence..." We're putting the finishing touches on now, despite the browbeating of Rob Crowther and Denyse O'Leary.
There will be more to say anon. I may even address "bittergate," a leading contender for "stupidest controversy ever" award. But hey, the election's not over yet!
Below the fold, secret, as yet unreleased, content from ExpelledExposed.com:
"the failure of intelligent design can readily be laid at the feet of its advocates, whose main activity appears to be to carp about the…
pharyngula | April 14, 2008CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE EVOLUTIONARY APPARATUS DIRECTIVE• OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY • OBEY •
We need to get the NCSE's counter-site to the hideous little propaganda film, Expelled, to rank higher in the search engines. The way to do this is for lots and lots of you to link to the Expelled Exposed site with the word Expelled. It's not hard: just copy this code into a blog post.
<a href="http://expelledexposed.com/"><i>Expelled</i></a>
Whenever you write about the movie, use that link. Do it a bunch of times, if you…
pharyngula | April 14, 2008From the Salt Lake Tribune:
Every semi-knowledgeable moviegoer and reader of movie criticism knows what the words "not screened for critics" means: The movie is a dog.
laelaps | April 13, 2008It has sometimes been said that the leaders of creationist ministries and advocates of intelligent design are charismatic, charming people who know how to play to the crowd. I don't believe it. Creationists are often just as loud, judgmental, and terse as the stereotype of evolutionary scientists that is so often hauled out to admonish students of nature for not being skilled enough at communicating their ideas effectively. Recently the Calvinist pastor R.C. Sproul interviewed Ben Stein about Expelled, and the result is the antithesis of stimulating discourse;
(Note: The video did not load…
gregladen | April 13, 2008Former conservative speech writer discusses economy (he feels that the economy is very strong) and intelligent Design Creationism here.
[Hat Tip: Peter M.]